Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!NNSC.NSF.NET!craig
From: craig@NNSC.NSF.NET (Craig Partridge)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: re: New Host-Requirement RFCs
Message-ID: <8910130644.AA12236@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 12 Oct 89 12:25:07 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 26


John:

    I think the picture is much better than you present.  Many users have
already expressed plans to put use the HR in their specifications.
Furthermore, the HR was sensitive to the needs of single-user systems.
As James Van Bokkelen stated at Interop, he thinks the MUSTs
in the HR are consistent with doing a DOS implementation.  (Except he
didn't like IP source-routing -- and then he confessed to recently
encountering a situation where he wished he had source-route support
in his IP.  I think James will concede he was biting his tail there...:-)

    My impression is that one of the vendors' biggest concerns is that
HR will require some effort to make existing, "working" code conform,
while at the same time, trying to enhance their products to keep up with
a changing world.  For most products which have tried earnestly
to track the TCP/IP protocol suite, these changes should not be very
extensive, but the concern is valid.  And to address this concern, the
IETF is planning to try to enforce a "quiet time" over the next 9 months
to a year during which we will not make new standards that affect hosts.
In other words, we'll try to make the protocol suite a fixed target for
the next year, so vendors have a chance to catch their breath and make
their implementations HR conformant.

Craig Partridge
IETF Area Director - Host and User Services