Thanks Dave, The other advice I have for anyone commenting on this case is to keep the argument simple. There are a lot of invention controversies along the lines of “Big famous company X says that it invented technology Y in (date 2), but actually plucky inventor Z had previously come up with the same technology in (date 1). Because date 1 is earlier than date 2 we should remember plucky inventor Z as the true inventor of Y, despite the PR and legal resources of company X which denied him recognition.” That’s the narrative that Ayyadurai is telling about himself, and reporters are liable to turn it into an Ayyadurai vs. Tomlinson contest. Discussion of such claims head in the direction of debates on whether plucky inventor Z’s simple prototype really counts as inventing the technology. What’s different about this case is that plucky inventor Z claims to have invented email in either 1980 or, more recently, in 1978 (and has shown code snippets that appears to come from 1982). Whereas historians already knew that simple electronic mail systems were in use at MIT in 1965, that electronic mail was sent over what became the Internet in 1971, that spam was sent in 1978, that Xerox had a recognizably modern GUI client by that time etc. So the features of Ayyadurai’s system are not the important thing in assessing his claim to be “the inventor of email.” I have no reason to doubt that he produced a perfectly good local email system. But Ayyadurai is only “the inventor of email” if nothing done prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982) was email. In other words, he’s trying to use the classic “plucky suppressed inventor” narrative even though his date 1 is many years later than the established date 2. To rebut this claim one doesn’t need to designate any individual as THE inventor of email, merely to reiterate the historical consensus that email is a synonym for electronic mail and that electronic mail was in use prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982). However smart and likeable you are, you can’t invent something that’s already been invented. Best wishes, Tom From: dave.walden.family@gmail.com [mailto:dave.walden.family@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2017 10:02 AM To: Thomas Haigh <thomas.haigh@gmail.com> Cc: Christine Finn <christine.finn@gmail.com>; David Golumbia <dgolumbia@gmail.com>; Sigcis <members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga Maybe the document should be something like a friend-of-court brief that is provided to the defense attorney rather than a public document and the court if the case ever goes to court. There is plenty of time for public documents later. I would think that passing Tom's list below to the defense attorney would already be useful. Best regards, Dave http://walden-family.com/bbn/email-invention.html (not updated in several years) Sent from my iPad On Jan 5, 2017, at 7:46 AM, "Thomas Haigh" <thomas.haigh@gmail.com <mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com> > wrote: Sounds like good idea. I’m busy with some other projects right now, and in any event it would be good to have somebody else take the lead on this for a while – make it more apparent to casual observers that there is a consensus in the history of computing community on this. Here are some resources that might be useful for someone thinking of writing on this issue: · http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai - my main page (includes links to various video and media content that would look good in a blog post, including a Xerox video). This tries to document and evaluate every historical claim made by Ayyadurai. · http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/CACM-SevenLessons.pdf my CACM article with lessons to be learned from the initial part of the case. This is more of a general reflection on what was going on from a media narrative viewpoint. · http://www.inventorofemail.com/ Ayyadurai’s own site · http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/05/shiva-ayyaduri-email-us-postal-service... Boston globe article – not 100% reliable, but if you read to the end carefully you’ll get the right idea. · https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffpo-publishes-biza... One of a number of solid Techdirt posts debunking Ayyadurai, this one dealing with the 2014 effort to push a misleading “History of Email” series focused exclusively on Ayyadurai. · https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=shiva+ayyadurai.Other Techdirt posts from this link, including one quoting me: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140903/18514728409/huffington-post-final... · https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog/post/origins-of-e-mail-my-mea-cu... Washington Post ombudsman admitting that the story was unfounded · http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/HistoriesOfTheInternetDRAFT.pdf Introduction to special issue of I&C on Internet History in which we mention Ayyadurai’s case as an example of an attempt to fill in the gap between people’s ordinary experience and the ARPANET story. Example of a way to acknowledge appeal of the Ayyadurai narrative without endorsing its claims. Resources on the actual history of email include * Janet Abbate’s Inventing the Internet * Craig Partridge’s Annals paper, “The Technical Development of Internet Email.” This is the best overview of the actual development of modern email. * My chapter in The Internet and American Business has some material on non-Internet email and how it was eventually assimilated: http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom/Writing/ProtocolsForProfitDRAFT.pdf. Best wishes, Tom From: Members [mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Christine Finn Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2017 9:09 AM To: David Golumbia <dgolumbia@gmail.com <mailto:dgolumbia@gmail.com> > Cc: Sigcis <members@sigcis.org <mailto:members@sigcis.org> > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Shiva/Gawker, also AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH I'd be happy to help with this. If we can craft something I'd be pleased to help reach a wider audience. I am already in touch with the UK Sunday Times - I contribute to them - and can make time to help with this, I don't have the tech expertise you all have, but can tell the story for the general public. all best Christine On 5 January 2017 at 09:56, David Golumbia <dgolumbia@gmail.com <mailto:dgolumbia@gmail.com> > wrote: "This is a historic victory for truth," declared Dr. Ayyadurai. "Americans have no tolerance for fake news, lies i mean, it's by far not the most offensive part of this story, but this statement leapt out at me--you coulda fooled me, and PT Barnum, and every "reality show" producer, and Facebook, and, and... -- David Golumbia dgolumbia@gmail.com <mailto:dgolumbia@gmail.com> _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org <http://sigcis.org> , the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org <http://sigcis.org> , the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

Tom, As I remember from the last round, the disagreement seemed to be over the definition of "email", wasn't it? I don't think there was a denial that messages were sent between computer terminals prior to the plucky young contributor's work, but that only after that point did the technology truly deserve the appellation "EMAIL", as allegedly proven by the grant of copyright? It does seem like there's been a certain fluidity in choosing whether the argument of the day is based on the name or the functional characteristics... But a refutation might want to consider both factors, i.e., evidence that the term email was in wide use, and that the claimed functionality (beyond just sending a message, although I don't remember what it was) was in use prior to the alleged invention. /guy On 1/5/2017 12:56 PM, Thomas Haigh wrote:

Thanks Dave,

The other advice I have for anyone commenting on this case is to keep the argument simple.

There are a lot of invention controversies along the lines of “Big famous company X says that it invented technology Y in (date 2), but actually plucky inventor Z had previously come up with the same technology in (date 1). Because date 1 is earlier than date 2 we should remember plucky inventor Z as the true inventor of Y, despite the PR and legal resources of company X which denied him recognition.” That’s the narrative that Ayyadurai is telling about himself, and reporters are liable to turn it into an Ayyadurai vs. Tomlinson contest. Discussion of such claims head in the direction of debates on whether plucky inventor Z’s simple prototype really counts as inventing the technology.

What’s different about this case is that plucky inventor Z claims to have invented email in either 1980 or, more recently, in 1978 (and has shown code snippets that appears to come from 1982). Whereas historians already knew that simple electronic mail systems were in use at MIT in 1965, that electronic mail was sent over what became the Internet in 1971, that spam was sent in 1978, that Xerox had a recognizably modern GUI client by that time etc. So the features of Ayyadurai’s system are not the important thing in assessing his claim to be “the inventor of email.” I have no reason to doubt that he produced a perfectly good local email system. But Ayyadurai is only “the inventor of email” if nothing done prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982) was email. In other words, he’s trying to use the classic “plucky suppressed inventor” narrative even though his date 1 is many years later than the established date 2.

To rebut this claim one doesn’t need to designate any individual as THE inventor of email, merely to reiterate the historical consensus that email is a synonym for electronic mail and that electronic mail was in use prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982). However smart and likeable you are, you can’t invent something that’s already been invented.

Best wishes,

Tom

*From:*dave.walden.family@gmail.com [mailto:dave.walden.family@gmail.com] *Sent:* Thursday, January 05, 2017 10:02 AM *To:* Thomas Haigh <thomas.haigh@gmail.com> *Cc:* Christine Finn <christine.finn@gmail.com>; David Golumbia <dgolumbia@gmail.com>; Sigcis <members@sigcis.org> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga

Maybe the document should be something like a friend-of-court brief that is provided to the defense attorney rather than a public document and the court if the case ever goes to court. There is plenty of time for public documents later. I would think that passing Tom's list below to the defense attorney would already be useful.

Best regards, Dave

http://walden-family.com/bbn/email-invention.html (not updated in several years)

Sent from my iPad

Isn't the claim more to the well-developed metaphor of a mail system similar to a physical office mail system? For example, Kay and Xerox can claim priority to the UI desktop metaphor, even though all the operations it implemented existed previously in command-line systems. The parry and riposte to pointing out mail/messaging capabilities of early systems is that, yes, they had similar functions, but that they had not been developed into a coherent metaphor for a complete real-world mail system. .... not that this is a valid claim ... Once you get into the UI widget, look-and-feel, metaphor space, the ground gets soft. - Bill ________________________________ From: Members [members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Jordi Fornes [jfornes@ac.upc.edu] Sent: Friday, January 06, 2017 4:41 AM To: Guy Fedorkow Cc: Thomas Haigh; members@lists.sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga That’s the point. What is an email? At least since 1975 (in the sixth edition of the Unix programmer’s manual) the command “mail” exists “to send mail to designated users”. I have not access to the source code of BSD Unix, but it was developed with a source control revision system, so it should be available somewhere. I'm almost certain that the “mail” command in 4 BSD (circa 1980) sent mail over TCP/IP. At all events, we need a definition of email, accepted by the community of experts, before talk about “firsts” (in my opinion, a trap keyword in history of science). Best wishes, — Dr Jordi Fornés jfornes@ac.upc.edu<mailto:jfornes@ac.upc.edu> +34 934 054 064 Computer Architecture Department Room D6-102 Campus Nord, Barcelona On 5 Jan 2017, at 20:30, Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com<mailto:guy.fedorkow@gmail.com>> wrote: Tom, As I remember from the last round, the disagreement seemed to be over the definition of "email", wasn't it? I don't think there was a denial that messages were sent between computer terminals prior to the plucky young contributor's work, but that only after that point did the technology truly deserve the appellation "EMAIL", as allegedly proven by the grant of copyright? It does seem like there's been a certain fluidity in choosing whether the argument of the day is based on the name or the functional characteristics... But a refutation might want to consider both factors, i.e., evidence that the term email was in wide use, and that the claimed functionality (beyond just sending a message, although I don't remember what it was) was in use prior to the alleged invention. /guy On 1/5/2017 12:56 PM, Thomas Haigh wrote: Thanks Dave, The other advice I have for anyone commenting on this case is to keep the argument simple. There are a lot of invention controversies along the lines of “Big famous company X says that it invented technology Y in (date 2), but actually plucky inventor Z had previously come up with the same technology in (date 1). Because date 1 is earlier than date 2 we should remember plucky inventor Z as the true inventor of Y, despite the PR and legal resources of company X which denied him recognition.” That’s the narrative that Ayyadurai is telling about himself, and reporters are liable to turn it into an Ayyadurai vs. Tomlinson contest. Discussion of such claims head in the direction of debates on whether plucky inventor Z’s simple prototype really counts as inventing the technology. What’s different about this case is that plucky inventor Z claims to have invented email in either 1980 or, more recently, in 1978 (and has shown code snippets that appears to come from 1982). Whereas historians already knew that simple electronic mail systems were in use at MIT in 1965, that electronic mail was sent over what became the Internet in 1971, that spam was sent in 1978, that Xerox had a recognizably modern GUI client by that time etc. So the features of Ayyadurai’s system are not the important thing in assessing his claim to be “the inventor of email.” I have no reason to doubt that he produced a perfectly good local email system. But Ayyadurai is only “the inventor of email” if nothing done prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982) was email. In other words, he’s trying to use the classic “plucky suppressed inventor” narrative even though his date 1 is many years later than the established date 2. To rebut this claim one doesn’t need to designate any individual as THE inventor of email, merely to reiterate the historical consensus that email is a synonym for electronic mail and that electronic mail was in use prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982). However smart and likeable you are, you can’t invent something that’s already been invented. Best wishes, Tom From: dave.walden.family@gmail.com<mailto:dave.walden.family@gmail.com> [mailto:dave.walden.family@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2017 10:02 AM To: Thomas Haigh <thomas.haigh@gmail.com><mailto:thomas.haigh@gmail.com> Cc: Christine Finn <christine.finn@gmail.com><mailto:christine.finn@gmail.com>; David Golumbia <dgolumbia@gmail.com><mailto:dgolumbia@gmail.com>; Sigcis<members@sigcis.org><mailto:members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga Maybe the document should be something like a friend-of-court brief that is provided to the defense attorney rather than a public document and the court if the case ever goes to court. There is plenty of time for public documents later. I would think that passing Tom's list below to the defense attorney would already be useful. Best regards, Dave http://walden-family.com/bbn/email-invention.html (not updated in several years) Sent from my iPad _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<http://sigcis.org>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

How did early “e-mail” differ from “TELEX”? Telex was in common use for decades and may still be around, for all I know. At the library I worked in in the 1970s we’d get Telex messages all the time. Paul Ceruzzi ceruzzip@si.edu<mailto:ceruzzip@si.edu> 202-633-2414 From: Members [mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Murray Turoff Sent: Monday, January 9, 2017 1:46 AM To: Jordi Fornes <jfornes@ac.upc.edu> Cc: Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org>; members@lists.sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga ​There were lots of systems that had "messages" available which were equivalent to email. ​ are those being ignored. the emisari system i built in 1971 at OEP had messages that could be sent to any member or collection of members in the system. arpa net had messages as well. The oep emisari manual is available from the njit library in a special collection of material we did for EIES which in part was a follow on to emisari. it is the special collection of material for CCCC (computerized conferencing and communications center). http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/ it is near the end of the list. and the eies manual 1974-5 also had a complete message system.

one feature we had in emisari for messages was that instead of or along with sending messages to members we could send messages to data items so that those retrieving the item would also get any new messages about it. this was very useful in emergency situations since you did not know who was concerned with the same problem you had to deal with that was reported in a data item. so larger group dialogues could start about the problem. this should be a feature in many corporate systems but it is not common yet. On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 9:05 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP@si.edu> wrote:

How did early “e-mail” differ from “TELEX”? Telex was in common use for decades and may still be around, for all I know. At the library I worked in in the 1970s we’d get Telex messages all the time.

Paul Ceruzzi

ceruzzip@si.edu

202-633-2414 <(202)%20633-2414>

*From:* Members [mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] *On Behalf Of *Murray Turoff *Sent:* Monday, January 9, 2017 1:46 AM *To:* Jordi Fornes <jfornes@ac.upc.edu> *Cc:* Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org>; members@lists.sigcis.org *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Resources on Ayyadurai saga

​There were lots of systems that had "messages" available which were equivalent to email. ​

are those being ignored. the emisari system i built in 1971 at OEP had messages that could be sent to any member or collection of members in the system.

arpa net had messages as well.

The oep emisari manual is available from the njit library in a special collection of material we did for EIES which in part was a follow on to emisari. it is the special collection of material for CCCC (computerized conferencing and communications center). http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/

it is near the end of the list. and the eies manual 1974-5 also had a complete message system.

-- *please send messages to murray.turoff@gmail.com <murray.turoff@gmail.com> do not use @njit.edu <http://njit.edu> addressDistinguished Professor EmeritusInformation Systems, NJIThomepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff <http://is.njit.edu/turoff>*