Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site wucs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!wucs!jst
From: jst@wucs.UUCP (Jon Turner)
Newsgroups: net.lan
Subject: Re: Re: Sources for OSI standards and proposals
Message-ID: <970@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-May-85 17:58:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: wucs.970
Posted: Wed May 29 17:58:45 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 20:21:20 EDT
References: <5357@tektronix.UUCP> <354@petrus.UUCP> <198@anasazi.UUCP>
Reply-To: jst@wucs.UUCP (Jon Turner)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 50
Summary: 

In article <198@anasazi.UUCP> larry@anasazi.UUCP (Larry Rodis) writes:
>> 
>> Michael Padlipsky has recently published a book through Prentice Hall
>> entitled "The Elements of Networking Style" (ISBN 0-13-268111-0.) It is a
>> compendium of critiques on the many questionable aspects of the ISO/OSI and
>> CCITT approaches to networking.  It presents a pretty strong case in favor
>> of the ARPA protocols (including TCP/IP), by pointing out that they have
>> already done for almost 10 years everything that ISO is just now getting
>> around to re-inventing.
>> 
>
>There is one problem with your suggestion to use ARPA protocols over ISO/OSI
>and that ISO/OSI is an international standard (or will be).  That is the 
>biggest reason to use it.  I realize that it is not the best (I'm working on
>X.25 and the Transport Layer) but it is being molded into a standard.
>There is much to be said to writing systems around a standard that is
>being accepted worldwide.  The most logical example is unix, it may not be
>the best OS in the world but it will run on more machines than anything else
>and therefore many companies are putting unix on there systems.  
>Considering how much  software maintenance costs portability is the name 
>of the game, and the ISO OSI protocals will help to achieve network
>portability.
>
I'm afraid you picked a terrible analogy. Unix was a very successful operating
system with a lot of miles on it before the standardization effort began.
That is, it was a de facto standard before anyone thought of making it an
official standard. (So far as I know, it's still not an official standard
but I don't think the lack of standardization will in any way impede its
success.) The ARPA protocols are also a de facto standard. They've
been around for a lot of years and have a lot of mileage on them in a wide
variety of different machines and operating systems. Many places uses them,
including anyplace that runs 4.2 BSD. The ISO/OSI protocols are not a de facto
standard and may never be. One of Padlipsky's big questions is (to paraphrase)
"Why commit your future to a committee-designed protocol suite, which
has never been fully implemented, with which there is limited
operational experience and which has a lot of known warts when there
exists a very workable de facto standard already available?"

I think he's got a point. I second Phil Karn's recommedation of Padlipsky's
book. It's one of the funniest books I've ever read and is worth reading
just for entertainment. It also has a serious message which should be heeded
by anyone getting into the "intercomputer networking game."


-- 

Jon Turner 	Washington University in St. Louis 314-889-6193
UUCP:		jst@wucs.UUCP  or  ..!{ihnp4,seismo}!wucs!jst
ARPANET:	wucs!jst@seismo.ARPA
CSNET:		wucs!jst@seismo.ARPA%csnet-relay