Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!ctnews!pyramid!batcomputer!cornell!gvax!ken
From: ken@gvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.misc
Subject: On the TCP/IP versus ISO "debate"
Message-ID: <893@gvax.cs.cornell.edu>
Date: Wed, 10-Jun-87 15:32:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: gvax.893
Posted: Wed Jun 10 15:32:22 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 08:36:54 EDT
Reply-To: ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY
Lines: 30

Many groups, like my ISIS project, The Ameoba project, and the V project
at Stanford see a need for broad support of protocols that conform to
the ISO standards but go beyond the basic TCP/IP stuff (for example, to
include multicasting).  This has lead to a bit of a debate, and as a result
DARPA has asked the DSAB to set up a task force on protocols, headed by
Dave Cheriton.  People interested in this issue may want to follow the
work of this task force.  We have met once so far, and will meet again
later this year.

To simplify dicussion, I think people should keep in mind that the ISO
standards really don't specify any particular protocol and hence it doesn't
make sense to talk about ISO versus TCP/IP.  At the same time, there is
a need to think about TCP/IP versus XNS, for example, and also to try and
consolidate the many "standards" that are being created for session level
protocols and for multicasting before things get out of hand.  I don't
want to get drawn into a long bboard discussion, but at some point in the
future the task force will certainly produce an RFC that people could
get to fairly easily and perhaps a copy could be posted to this news group too.
An RFC is a request for comments, so comments would be appropriate then.

My personal interest is in seeing less of an emphasis on RPC and more of
an emphasis on multicasting and reliability issues.  We really need to
watch out or we will have to live with a generation of networks that are
really good at RPC just as we all discover that reliable multicasting is
where its really at... (this is a red herring).  Other members of the
task force have their own biases, but I think we cover quite a spectrum of
interests reprsenting industry as well as academics.  Stay tuned, there will
be interesting stuff to debate.

Ken Birman