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From: gih900@sao.aarnet.edu.au (Geoff Huston)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Internet routing Europe - USA -} Europe...
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.090057.1@sao.aarnet.edu.au>
Date: 11 Sep 90 14:00:57 GMT
References: <1990Aug30.091435.1982@ircam.ircam.fr <1990Sep5.092510.22637@cs.city.ac.uk> <13713@ulysses.att.com>
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In article <13713@ulysses.att.com>, smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes:
> In article <1990Sep5.092510.22637@cs.city.ac.uk>, sb380@cs.city.ac.uk (Andy Holt) writes:
>> The JNT in its infinite wisdom (???) has mandated that the ISO
>> profile used in the UK use TC0 (connection oriented transport
>> service) while NBS in the USA is encouraging the use of TC4
>> (connectionless transport service).
> 
> Without commenting on the wisdom (or the lack thereof) of JANET, the
> real problem here is OSI.  They've designed a protocol stack with
> mutually incompatible options, thus preventing communication between
> parties who've made different decisions.  What's the point of a
> standard that's incompatible with itself?

A lot - If the people who go to ISO standards meetings get paid by the hour
then there's at least another two decades of employment in store for them in
attempting to come to grips with the astonishingly large mess that they're
creating.

(I was about to wack in a smiley until I realized that its no joke)

Geoff Huston