Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: RFC-1122 and 1123
Keywords: conformance bids
Message-ID: <85285@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 13 Feb 91 18:52:01 GMT
Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 52


In the discussion about UDP checksums, someone wrote to me:

> I have no idea if [name censored] would reply to a bid that required RFC 1122
> conformance and claim conformance.  They don't conform.


As you might guess from my return address, I've no shortage of bids, RFQ's
and RFP's that have either checklist items for "conforms to RFC 112[23]" or
copies of the entire checklists from the RFCs.

Not long ago, a room full of people concerned with such things sat down to
determine the company's official answer.  We started at the beginning,
considering each SHOULD, MAY, CAN, WILL, WON'T, OUGHT, COULD, and
ONLY-IDIOTS-WOULD-DO-OTHERWISE.  We filled many hours with "gee, of course
we do/don't/would/wouldn't do that, but let's check...see the code there
...but look...ok, add to the list for verification."

After lots of this powerful fun, we paused to estimate when we'd be
finished making the list and how long the list would be.  The encouraging
answer was that the list would be finished in only a few months and would
be only a little bigger than the RFC's.

We thought about the effort and considered the size of the existing bug
lists for the areas covered by the RFCs.  We individually compared the
personal satisfaction to be gained from completing the list with other
pursuits like making TCP/IP/FDDI run 30% faster.  Then we considered the
gain to our customers from having less fast, less feature-full, buggier but
"conforming" implementations.

The result is that we will make an honest effort to perpetually look
through the RFCs for real and potential problems, and to add discovered or
reported conflicts to the bug lists to be fixed with the other bugs.
However, we won't claim conformance.  We'll just provide the linage of our
source.  This decision did not make our sales people cry with joy.

In other words, RFC-1122 and RFC-1123 are interesting reading, great guides
for writing or fixing code, and wonderful tools for adjudicating blame
among vendors.  They are terrible conformance standards, at least at this
non-military-standards sort of shop.

I know the response many will have is that 27 gov. agencies and 63
industrial consortia are developing test facilities.  Old and new
experience with test suites such as SVVS and POSIX, to name only two,
make me skeptical of that panacea.

Are there different perspectives from others, outside the gov. agencies,
consortia, etc who want to sell us and our customers their seals of approval?



Vernon Schryver,   vjs@sgi.com