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The Generative Pattern 69
themselves. Layers facilitate polyarchies, and the proprietary networks were
hierarchies. 3
The second design insight of the hourglass is represented by its shape. The
framers of Internet Protocol did not undertake to predict what would fill the
upper or lower layers of the hourglass. As a technical matter, anyone could become
part of the network by bringing a data-carrying wire or radio wave to the
party. One needed only to find someone already on the network willing to
share access, and to obtain a unique IP address, an artifact not intended to be
hoarded. Thus, wireless Internet access points could be developed by outsiders
without any changes required to Internet Protocol: the Protocol embodied so
few assumptions about the nature of the medium used that going wireless did
not violate any of them. The large variety of ways of physically connecting is
represented by the broad base to the hourglass. Similarly, the framers of Internet
Protocol made few assumptions about the ultimate uses of the network.
They merely provided a scheme for packaging and moving data, whatever its
purpose. This scheme allowed a proliferation of applications from any interested
and talented source—from the Web to e-mail to instant messenger to file
transfer to video streaming. Thus, the top of the hourglass is also broad. It is
only the middle that is narrow, containing Internet Protocol, because it is
meant to be as feature-free as possible. It simply describes how to move data,
and its basic parameters have evolved slowly over the years. Innovation and
problem-solving are pushed up or down, and to others: Chapter Two’s procrastination
principle at work.
This same quality is found within traditional PC architecture. It greatly facilitates
the way that the overall network operates, although those joining the
debate on Internet openness have largely ignored this quality. Operating system
designers like Microsoft and Apple have embraced the procrastination
principle of their counterparts in Internet network design. Their operating systems,
as well as Unix and its variants, are intentionally incomplete; they were
built to allow users to install new code written by third parties. Such code could
entirely revise the way a computer operates, which gives individuals other than
the original designers the capacity to solve new problems and redirect the purposes
of PCs. 4 We could even sketch a parallel hourglass of PC architecture
(Figure 4.2).
The PC can run code from a broad number of sources, and it can be physically
placed into any number and style of physical chassis from many sources,
at least as a technical matter. (Sometimes the operating system maker may object
as a strategic and legal matter: Apple, for example, has with few exceptions