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From: donp@na.excelan.com (don provan)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: 'legal' protocol behavior
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.220441.28124@novell.com>
Date: 12 Apr 91 19:49:10 GMT
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Reply-To: donp@novell.com (don provan)
Organization: Novell, Inc., San Jose, California
References: <9104110553.AA03082@ftp.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1991 22:04:41 GMT

In article <9104110553.AA03082@ftp.com> ljm@ftp.com writes:
>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.

On the other hand, i got a little tired of people measuring
protocol correctness by whether it interoperated with BSD 4.2.

>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.

Interoperability testing is certainly important, but a failure to
ineroperate still requires a way to determine which implementation is
in error, and the specs provide a mechanism for making that
determination.  Depending on interoperability testing only is exactly
what got the TCP/IP community into the "BSD mess" that we're finally
leaving behind us.  I, for one, would rather not see that era
repeated.
						don provan
						donp@novell.com