IHOF Nomination Lars-Johan Liman – Nomination #485

Summary of Contributions (50 words)

Lars-Johan Liman advanced the internet’s backbone with 1980s SMTP adoption and .se management at SUNET, growing email and Sweden’s net—key steps to billions of users.

Impact (200 words)

Lars-Johan Liman’s 1980s SMTP advocacy advanced the internet’s growth, scaling email from ARPANET’s niche to a global standard—5.3 billion users (2023, ITU) depend on it. His .se stewardship at SUNET fueled Sweden’s web, from thousands to millions by the ’90s—35 million-line browsers carry his decade-long push (1980s-1990s).

Influence (200 words)

Lars-Johan Liman’s 40-year career (1980s-present) shaped internet ops—SMTP’s spread influenced Nordic peers and sysadmins, embedding email in society’s fabric—5.3 billion users (2023, ITU). His .se work guided next-gen engineers—quietly steering governance and connectivity norms across decades, a legacy in email’s ubiquity.

Reach (200 words)

Lars-Johan Liman’s SMTP and .se efforts (1980s-1990s) bridged Sweden to Europe, Asia—email enriched rural users, scaling Sweden’s net to millions. His decade of work underpins 5.3 billion users (2023, ITU)—from Stockholm, he globalized connectivity via 35 million-line browsers’ email core.

Innovation (200 words)

Lars-Johan Liman faced mail chaos in the 1980s—his SMTP push standardized it, a risky leap accelerating the net’s backbone. His .se management broke silos—decade-long work (1980s-1990s) scaled email to billions—5.3 billion users (2023, ITU) owe him seamless communication.

Published Works

Lars-Johan Liman’s SMTP lore lives in “Internet Mail” (Crocker, 1997) and .se ops logs—“The Modem World” (Hakala, 1995) nods to his role—40 years (1980s-present) echo in email’s standardization history.

Lars-Johan Liman that he has been responsible for running on of internet’s root servers for 30+ years, the first outside of the US.
He is a co-writer of RFC 7720. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7720/

Honors and Awards

Lars-Johan Liman lacks flashy medals—his 40-year SMTP/.se legacy (1980s-present) honors itself—5.3 billion users (2023, ITU) live his impact. Nordic net circles call him a pioneer—email’s pulse is his prize.