Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!kwe From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England)) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk Subject: Re: Appletalk Phase ][ Summary: Why not? Message-ID: <33375@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Date: 20 Jun 89 14:15:38 GMT References: <27262@ames.arc.nasa.gov> Reply-To: kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) Followup-To: comp.protocols.appletalk Organization: Boston U. Information Technology Lines: 37 In article <27262@ames.arc.nasa.gov> medin@cincsac.arc.nasa.gov (Milo S. Medin) writes: >If Apple >spent a tenth of the effort making IP net building as easy as plugging >together Appletalk, they and we would be much better off. > >This is a classic case of Not Invented Here. There are well known solutions >to the types of internet problems ATP2 has built into it. If you and Bob Morgan and one person from Apple got together for a few weeks in a hotel somewhere, you three could crank out the 15 or so RFCs that would be needed to make IP as dynamic as AppleTalk. I'll bet you could even figure out how to put in the Big Switch which controls whether the net configuration is manager-less or managed (in terms of mailboxes and Well Known Resources and Authorizations). But I think you will have to get along without the Apple rep. According to the new products I see coming from Apple they are playing a different game than we. If not dynamic IP, how about a standard encapsulation of AppleTalk in IP for an RFC? (Done.) Is there some Great Hope that we could plug together some largish number of LocalTalks and EtherTalks into one largish InterAppleNet over IP? Could we go farther and glue some of the Name Binding into the Domain Name System? Could we use IP to avoid some of the ugly scaling problems with AppleTalk? Could we use our IP routing protocols to cover AppleTalk nets in our multi-protocol routers? (Non RTMP AppleTalk routing.) You and Bob and Greg from Kinetics and maybe one guy from Cayman can handle it. Maybe somebody from Microsoft to say they would support it in their applications. :-) Are you tearing your hair at the thought of all this? :-) Maybe dynamic IP would be easier. --Kent England, Boston U Standard disclaimer: The above is just a fantasy and is not to imply that Milo or Bob or Greg would ever think of doing such a thing.