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From: PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU (Michael Padlipsky)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: IP and Coloured Book Software in the UK
Message-ID: <12694360385.18.PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU>
Date: 18 Jun 91 03:24:16 GMT
References: <5358@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
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[I, of course, replied:]

Hi--

The "Open" in OSI was originally touted as being the antithesis of
Proprietary.  "Anybody can do it" sort of thing.  Thus, depending on
your view of the comprehensibility of ISO specs, TCP/IP is arguably
MORE "open" than OSI, and in no meaningful sense less so.  (The
lack of blessing by an international standards organization is both
circular reasoning and, to some, a further argument in TCP/IP's favor
[though rarely in its favour, apparently (just a little Panatlantic
orthographical humo{u}r, there)].)

Assuming you've figured out which side I'm on, I'll touch briefly on
why I'd claim the Colourisers SHOULD have known better: by the late
'70s TCP/IP implementations were running whilst the only thing the
ISORMites had running was their mouths.

(Plus, rudimentary awareness of the pace of the international standards
process should have indicated that it would take quite some time for
OSI to overcome TCP/IP's chronological lead.  Say, at least half-a-dozen
years as of the late '70s.  That it's a dozen and counting by now could not
necessarily have been anticipated, but was at least implicit in some
technoaesthetic critques of the early '80s.)

For more on "ISORMites", and what somebody once called the "electropolitics"
of it all in a review, see M. A. Padlipsky, _The Elements of Networking
Style_, Prentice-Hall, 1985, and--lest I be accused of advertizing--
Marshall Rose, _The Open Book_, Prentice-Hall, 1990.  Although the
conclusions do differ, both books do, in my view, adduce rather
similar evidence about the technoholy wars between what I call the
ARM (ARPANET Reference Model) and the ISORM (ISO Reference Model)
--or, more accurately, between the adherents of the ARM and the ISORM.

cheers, map
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