Thank you!

What was our alternative? Stop our work entirely? Something even worse may have appeared (which arguably was Windows, though it has improved greatly over the last 10-20 years?). Note that commercial companies were also strongly discouraged from using any crypto for a long time: the license process for them was a PITA, enforcing very poor security (by the key length limitations).

There is also the law of unintended consequences as well. HTTP cookies, which have been a privacy nightmare, were implemented very quickly by Netscape to enable E-commerce, being much easier to use than the cumbersome methods used by OpenMarket before cookies were available. As HTTP editor, we had concerns about standardization of them, but it was a “done deal” by the time the IETF started work on the spec as it was in widespread use. The best we could do was to standardize their use with a decent spec, rather than try to design anything better.
I also guarantee we did not foresee the depth of the nightmare they became. in the face of advertisers and others. One’s crystal ball becomes very cloudy.

“Don’t confuse the absence of something better for lack of vision by people” totally agree. I think many people are actually quite intelligent. I respect the giants of the shoulders we now stand upon.

However:
Given the current state of the internet.
(Context being extremely problematic security and privacy issues)

Do you think the choice of putting software Distribution over say security/privacy was the correct one?

If you could go back in time would you still make the same decision?

How much of this decision really rests on a political ideology forwarded by the likes of people like John Perry Barlow?

RFC 114 (dating from 1971) predates the Internet as we know it (ARPA net days). Access control was at the IMP level then (you had to have an authorized account to use the ARPA net at that point). It was very much a “prototype”. The TCP/IP conversion occurred in 1982(?).

By the mid 1980’s, and the advent of BSD UNIX making connection to the Internet much, much easier, it was clearly growing up, and this is the era of Kerberos’ (and X’s) initial development.

So people did what they could: e.g. passwords were added to FTP. (note that RFC’s often occur much later than implementation).

Don’t confuse the absence of something better for lack of vision by people: export controls meant that you would be unable to freely distribute your software, and inhibited lots of software, not just X’s design and implementation.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc114

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc959

I would probably get a little PC x86 box, and use a Ubiquiti Mesh router for the WiFi. A bit pricier, but would work.

There is crossover router software (commercial UTM / home-friendly) that just released v13.0 and is available for free download, no constraints (industrial-strength applications are paid subscriptions) with a very affordable home subscription available.
https://www.untangle.com/untangle-ng-firewall/untangle-at-home/

Untangle Next-Gen FireWall (NGFW) can now configure fq-codel, in the 3.16 kernel.

Release announcement:
https://forums.untangle.com/announcements/38401-untangle-v13-0-0-available.html
bug-track: https://jira.untangle.com/browse/NGFW-6258
nice description: https://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Bufferbloat

UT NGFW is also available as firmware for a few home router kits.

Jim Alles’ disclaimer: I am not a shill, I am a user who enthusiastically provides support on the UT forums, and have learned much more there in return!

The USG is internally the same hardware as an EdgeRouter (I believe there are a couple of USG variants that correspond to different EdgeRouter variants) but with a UI more oriented to home use, so in a sense this already exists except it’s in “spend more money” form. Consequently, your wish seems unlikely to be granted.

This was five years ago; I have no clue if the technical note is still present, or applies to Windows 7 or 10.