Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!ucbvax!FTP.COM!ljm
From: ljm@FTP.COM (leo j mclaughlin iii)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: 'legal' protocol behavior
Message-ID: <9104110553.AA03082@ftp.com>
Date: 11 Apr 91 05:53:29 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ljm@ftp.com
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 34

>>The intent of my reply was to emphasise the importance of standard
>>practice over RFC definition as a guide for implementors decisions
>>as to what is 'legal'....
>
>I'll stand by my comments - in general, the RFCs ought to be the
>definition.  Certainly there needs to be room to correct errors...
>but such deviations ought to be strictly those that have been accepted
>in the appropriate public forum (IETF, a mailing list, or whatever)...
>
>...I'm not willing to define "standard practice" as the way
>the first or the most prevalent implementation does it, without some
>good justification to go along with it.
>

I just get tired of having to debug yet another implementation which was
written by someone going off in a corner and developing communications
software 'according to the RFC' when the RFC deviates from existing practice.
I know a number of TCPs which were written by this method (I'll name names
privately if you'ld like) which don't actually work all that well.

As for acceptance in a public forum, the last IETF saw yet another rousing
cheer for considering conformance testing, much less simple belief in
conformance to a document, to be worthless in judging if an implementation
is ready to be distributed to the world at large.  

The point being that it is only by conducting interoperability testing with
as many different implementations as possible can the quality or 'legality'
of an internetworking product be judged.  And that the ability to quote a
section from a MILSTD or RFC is insufficent cause to loose a noninteroperable
implementation on poor users.

enjoy,
leo j mclaughlin iii
ljm@ftp.com