Besides the considerable technical contributions of Doug's project at SRI, theirs was a group that did much to create the open and collaborative tone of the Internet that we've come to consider as automatic and natural, but were unusual in those days.

Sadly, the open and collaborative tone of the Internet that we've come to consider as automatic and natural is becoming less and less automatic and natural as people put things in walled gardens using weird non-standard rapidly-changing protocols and close access to anyone not using The Official Client.