Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Starlan/Ethernet compatibility
Message-ID: <1989Jun22.155454.7396@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <2009@wasatch.utah.edu> <2230006@hprnd.HP.COM> <1989Jun21.155639.21593@utzoo.uucp> <3077@portia.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 89 15:54:54 GMT

In article <3077@portia.Stanford.EDU> morgan@Jessica.UUCP (RL "Bob" Morgan) writes:
>Well, Henry, I invite you to come and submit a cost-effective Ethernet
>design for our central campus... [subject to troublesome constraints]

Well, in return, I invite you to come and submit a cost-effective twisted-
pair Ethernet design for connecting my apartment to my workplace.  It's
only a couple of kilometers away, surely an unimportant constraint... :-)

Standards should not be expected to solve everyone's problems.  Apart from
some general dislike for the idea, standardizing twisted-pair Ethernet
simply seems to me to be premature -- all the schemes are new enough that
nobody has a good idea of which works best, as witness the wrangling over
which one to adopt.  If the current mania for standardizing everything
immediately continues, our successors will curse our memories.

	"Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can,
	improve the solutions, and pass them on.  It is our respon-
	sibility to leave the people of the future a free hand.  In
	the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors
	that can stunt our growth for a long time.  This we will do
	if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as
	we are.  If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, pro-
	claiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we
	will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority,
	confined to the limits of our present imagination..."

						- Richard Feynman
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as the  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
US government is to freedom.   | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu