Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!SIMTEL20.ARPA!WANCHO From: WANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Do we need another protocol? Message-ID: Date: Sun, 28-Sep-86 00:01:00 EDT Article-I.D.: SIMTEL20.WANCHO.12242430922.BABYL Posted: Sun Sep 28 00:01:00 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 28-Sep-86 16:40:50 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 16 Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa There is a growing trend in the Army to network Intel 310s running Xenix on a fat Ethernet under OpenNet. When asked why OpenNet instead of TCP/IP, the answer most often heard is because OpenNet provides inter-machine file and record-level access at the application level. At one time, there was a brief discussion of the possibility of extending the FTP definition to allow for record-level access. It seemed to me then that FTP was the wrong place and that an entirely new protcol should be defined. Was this ever done and formally recognized as part of the TCP protocol suite? If not, why not? Would it be possible to provide an OpenNet functionality within the TCP confines so that we don't have to provide two otherwise incompatible services requiring two sets of hardware interfaces for every node that should have both capabilities. --Frank