Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: PPP on STREAMS
Message-ID: <81325@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 16 Jan 91 00:09:07 GMT
References: <9101131946.AA28696@ccci>
Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 33

In article <9101131946.AA28696@ccci>, tcs@ccci.UUCP (Terry Slattery) writes:
> ...
> 
> I don't recall ever hearing about a PPP interoperability test.  Perhaps
> Interop should consider setting up a demonstration of PPP at its next
> conference? ...


There was talk of an INTEROP PPP test.  I heard at first it would be
restricted to "commercial implementations that would be available to end
users by Oct. 1990", or words to that effect.  That sort of requirement has
a chilling effect on what is necessarily a low profit product.  (How much
would you pay for a PPP implementation?  How many copies at that price
would be required for my employer to recover my time to port or implement
it and to pay for stocking, distributing, and advertising it?  How many
copies would be required to recover the INTEROP fees to participate in the
demo?)  By the end of the 2nd FDDI Hot Staging, I was told the rules were
much looser.  Perhaps I just misunderstood at first.

Trade show "interoperability tests" don't measure what you may think they
measure.  They do not ensure that two random companies' products will work
usefully together in your network.  Instead they show that the vendor
representatives can avoid killing each other and the show management during
the hot stagings and that things can be made to look good during the show.
They are marketing events.  (I have been involved with INTEROP demos for
two years.  I cannot answer any questions about what I may have observed at
any booth other than my employer's, and so can say nothing about observed
interopability or problems.)


Vernon Schryver,   vjs@sgi.com