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From: schoff@cadtroy.UUCP (Martin Lee Schoffstall)
Newsgroups: net.mail.msggroup
Subject: Re: RFCs vs. X.* standards
Message-ID: <129@cadtroy.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 30-Oct-84 09:45:31 EST
Article-I.D.: cadtroy.129
Posted: Tue Oct 30 09:45:31 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Nov-84 03:08:58 EST
References: <74674@QZCOM> <75558@QZCOM> <858@dual.UUCP>
Organization: CADMUS [Troy Office], Troy NY
Lines: 48


> The rest of the world can go screw itself with X.400 (as they are
> apparently trying to) and we can pray that DoD will see the light and
> ignore them. Somehow, standards that are made by a committee of people
> who have never used or supported a large computer network (such as the
> ARPA INTERNET) strike me as ill conceived.

	What happens when you want to talk to rest of the world?  There
	are other places in the world where people are doing interesting
	things.
	
	Then there is the question of why the DOD should be spending
	upteen billions of dollars on research in mail, networking etc..
	when (or if) the commercial sector has a good answer.  [Didn't
	you see the 60 minutes episode on the F20 Tigershark?]

	You are being a bit colonial in your belief that others haven't
	used or supported large computer networks.  At the inception
	of the Arpanet others were also experimenting.  Now there are
	a multitude of large X.25 networks, and yes even a internetwork
	of X.25 networks.
> 
> For whatever glitches might be in the RFCs, they are the product of
> almost 15 years of research and practical experience, and should not be
> cavalierly discarded in favor of X.400.
> 

	One of the criticism that I have heard in the past is that
	the people who wrote the RFC's were RESEARCHERS, it was a
	real interesting research project and they even spent some
	time implementing 90% of the specification.  But that
	other 10% was a bit hard and left as an excersize to the
	student while they go on to other interesting things,
	"We do research!" they would say.  The problem was that
	the last 10% of the specification didn't hack it in
	the real world.
	
	If you don't want the DOD to cavalierly discard the RFC's
	(they won't), why don't you take the same tack and not
	cavalierly discard the work of other standards making
	bodies.
	

marty schoffstall

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