Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!dls
From: dls@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (David L Stevens)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Using the 4.2 broadcast addr with 4.3 systems
Message-ID: <3801@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 31 Aug 89 01:29:28 GMT
References: <8908290708.AA20139@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <17528@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Reply-To: dls@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (David L Stevens)
Organization: PUCC UNIX Group
Lines: 17


	But but but...

	What about directed broadcasts? If you remove the idea of a broadcast
address from IP, you lose this. Maybe you see that as an advantage... :-)
	I'm not really sure what you mean by "making it a flag", though; I
presume you mean in the uppermost interface of IP, but perhaps you mean
something in the packet. (?) The latter wouldn't seem much different than
a broadcast address, since all but the "real" addressee would reject it,
unless it were some special address, anyway.
	I have to admit I can't think of any (honorable, anyway) uses of
directed broadcast, but it's not clear to me that there are none. With
things on the Internet becoming more numerous and harder to find, I expect
directed broadcast and multicast addressing will become more useful in the
coming years...
-- 
					+-DLS  (dls@mentor.cc.purdue.edu)