It is exactly what it is. The internet of today also wouldn’t look the way it looks without the incredibly valuable contributions built atop the foundation. I wouldn’t look too harshly at a carpenter for not constantly acknowledging that their house frame would be a whole lot less useful if not for the concrete slab underneath it. Whilst I certainly respect the names you mention, we can’t pretend that the Internet of today is as it was in their imaginations. The Internet is the world’s largest collaborative project and is exactly the sum of its parts. The design envisaged by these people is exactly why no one person or small group of people really deserve to be put on such a high pedestal.

> The design envisaged by these people is exactly why no one person or small group of people really deserve to be put on such a high pedestal.

You have missed the point. The things we take for granted today started small and evolved from there; we have merely added a lot of superstructure to the underlying bedrock foundations envisaged by these select pioneers. All the application layer protocols and technologies utilizing them can be replaced as the fad changes (eg. distributed Objects vs. distributed web) but these core concepts/ideas/technologies will always remain and hence needs to be acknowledged. The situation is analogous to the building of great Architectural Marvels; even though a lot of folks with different skill sets are actually responsible for the manifestation, it is usually the "Architect(s)" who are credited with the achievement because it is the keeping of the holistic design together through its evolution is what is actually the key.

Your analogy doesn't make any sense, and "Whilst I certainly respect the names you mention" is faint praise kinda like "You have ten cats? Wow, it only smells like five or six!"

Maxwell didn't envision electric guitars, either. That doesn't mean Les Paul is equal to him.

Even by your analogy though, GP’s concept makes sense. I would cringe if an old guy at a music store started rambling about how kids these days with their fancy electric guitar don’t even respect the great Lord Maxwell, without whom we wouldn’t understand electromagnetism enough to make an electric guitar.

Even by your cringey explanation, GP's "concept" (as you call it) is stupid.

We honor the people who first develop something, because, by definition, they're out there without much, if any support. Improving something once it's there is much easier and safer. If you fail, hey -- the original thing is still there.

On the other hand, if you're the type to whom everything is obvious once you see it, then I can understand how it might all seem equal to you.

> It should not have taken this long to officially recognize his contributions.

His contributions have been officially recognized many times before, this is not the first time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kahn - check out the list of awards. 13 in all over the last 30 years including this one. He received the Turing Award in 2004 with Vint Cerf and also the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 1997.

Yes, of course; i meant why this one took so long.

Because it's a career achievement award. Look at the other people who have received it and when, in their lives, they received it. It's also a bit of a broader category of award than the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal he received 3 decades ago which is for the field of telecommunications. Vint Cerf only received it last year himself. It also looks like it's not awarded to more than one person at a time, and it's only awarded annually, so that limits the number of people who could ever possibly receive it quite a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Medal_of_Honor

Agreed; but sometimes it just feels like these award committees have no sense of timing and it often appears like a case of "too little too late". Awards should be given as soon as a person's discoveries/inventions have been validated and when people are still aware of them to make an impact on public consciousness.