Claims

Factual · Technology

“They all use TCP/IP which was not a government standard.”

Marc Andreessen, Netscape COO, interviewee · June 1995 · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Marc Andreessen (Smithsonian)

The networks in question all use TCP/IP, which was not a government standard.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

What would count as true or false

Judge as of June 1995. The claim is that TCP/IP, the protocol suite the networks in question all use, was not a government standard: it came out of the research and RFC/IETF process rather than being the networking standard the government officially mandated. TRUE: evidence shows that by mid-1995 TCP/IP was specified through RFCs/IETF and not through a government standards body, and that the US government's official networking standard was something else (e.g., OSI via GOSIP, FIPS 146). Earlier DARPA funding or DoD adoption does not by itself make the claim false, as long as TCP/IP was not the official government standard. MOSTLY TRUE: TCP/IP was not the mandated government standard, but it had some formal government standing (e.g., DoD MIL-STD designations, or GOSIP being amended to allow TCP/IP) that the blanket statement passes over. MIXED: the evidence shows TCP/IP and OSI had roughly equal official government status by 1995. MOSTLY FALSE: TCP/IP was a formally adopted government standard for a major part of the government (e.g., a DoD military standard in force), so the statement overstates its independence from government. FALSE: TCP/IP was the US government's official, mandated networking standard in 1995.

Evidence

1. Federal Register, Volume 60 Issue 93 (Monday, May 15, 1995) U.S. Government Publishing Office (Federal Register), notice by NIST, Department of Commerce · 15 May 1995

   “This change modifies FIPS 146-1 by removing the requirement that Federal agencies specify GOSIP protocols when they acquire networking products and services and communications systems and services.”

2. RFC 1169: Explaining the role of GOSIP RFC Editor (IAB, with NIST co-author K. Mills) · August 1990

   “The Government OSI Profile (GOSIP), published as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 146, issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), specifies the details of an OSI configuration for use in the Government so that interoperable OSI products can be procured from commercial vendors.”

3. OSI: The Internet That Wasn’t IEEE Spectrum · 30 July 2013

   “Meanwhile, the Department of Commerce issued a mandate in 1988 that the OSI standard be used in all computers purchased by U.S. government agencies after August 1990.”

4. Overview of TCP/IP and the Internet Gary C. Kessler (independent author; originally posted on InterNIC gopher, 1994) · 14 January 2026

   “In 1983, the DoD mandated that all of their computer systems would use the TCP/IP protocol suite for long-haul communications, further enhancing the scope and importance of the ARPANET.”

Reasoning

E2 and E3 show that the US government's official networking standard was OSI. It was specified through GOSIP (FIPS 146, issued by NIST), and a 1988 Commerce Department mandate required OSI for government computer purchases. That supports the claim that TCP/IP was not the government standard. However, E4 reports that in 1983 the DoD required TCP/IP for all its long-haul communications, so TCP/IP did have formal standing in part of the government. E1 also shows that in May 1995 the GOSIP procurement requirement was removed. Because E4 reports a 1983 DoD mandate for TCP/IP that the blanket statement passes over, the claim is mostly true rather than true; the evidence does not show whether that mandate was still in force in 1995.

Cite this claim

Marc Andreessen, “The networks in question all use TCP/IP, which was not a government standard.” (said June 1995). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_8d1fa73443b5, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_8d1fa73443b5