The consensus protocol: How a radical process, invented to build the ARPANET, spawned history's greatest tool for collaborative work

Each March, July and November, we are reminded that the Internet is not quite the mature, stable technology that it seems to be. We rely on the Internet as an essential tool for our economic, social, educational, and political lives. But when the Internet Engineering Task Force meets every four months at an open conference that bounces from continent to continent, more than 1,000 people from around the world gather with change on their minds. Their vision of the global network that all humanity shares is dynamic, evolving, and continuously improving. Their efforts combine with the contributions of myriad others to ensure that the Internet always works but is never done, never complete. Nothing about digital communications technology suggests that it should be self-organizing or, for that matter, fundamentally reliable. We enjoy an Internet that is both of those at once because multiple generations of network developers have embraced a principle and a process that have been quite rare in the history of technology. The principle is that the protocols that govern how Internet-connected devices communicate should be open, expandable, and robust. And the process that invents and refines those protocols demands collaboration and a large degree of consensus among all who care to participate. The evolution of this system is described