Today I met with the creator of Quiet, a new chat app that doesn't require a server. That is, it's peer-to-peer and completely decentralized.

We quickly got into how much we appreciate how the Internet itself is decentralized and both want to keep it that way.

I started talking about Scott Bradner and his use of the word “anarchy” as a positive attribute of the Internet.

I struggled to explain what Scott was saying but later I dug up his article, The importance of restrained anarchy. Here are my favorite quotes:

A little bit of anarchy has been critical to the success of the Internet. There has been a rare freedom to experiment on the Internet.

The non-presence of government or industry mandated applications standards has allowed new applications like the World Wide Web to be developed and adopted. In a more ordered world, new applications would be developed through a standards process which, through careful analysis of the problems and careful evaluation of the suggestions, does its best to inhibit individual innovation .

The problem in some arenas is that standards become exclusive in the sense that non-standardized technology is not permitted. The Internet has not suffered from a over abundance of mandated standards. This attitude of flexibility, bordering sometimes on anarchy, is crucial to the continued dynamic evolution of this connectivity service we call the Internet.

I had the pleasure of briefly working with Scott professionally not long before he retired. He was a huge help in getting me up to speed with Shibboleth, SAML, and identity federations (such as InCommon). I also enjoyed his talks, which is where I first heard of his thoughts on how a little bit of anarchy has been a very good thing. Thanks, Scott.