送交者: jiangzhaiwai 于 2005-8-23, 00:18:38:
A previous post on 美欧基础研究走下坡路 has the following quote:
如果没有国防部25年前在斯坦福大学对Darpa网络的研究支持，太阳微系统 (Sun Microsystems)和思科系统(Cisco Systems)等企业就不会存在。Darpa网络是互联网的前身。
Darpa net is really a commercial success story. Anyone who has ever bothered studying the internet protocols could see that they are not some kind of intellectual breakthrough from fundamental research. The success came from giving access to researchers at a time when hardware was expensive. It is really the successes of the companies like Sun that popularized the internet. Without DarpaNet we would probably have some other kind of internetwork by other successful companies today. Without Sun (really BSD) nobody would remember DarpaNet today. This really is not a good example for supporting fundamental research.