Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!SRI-NIC.ARPA!STJOHNS
From: STJOHNS@SRI-NIC.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Life in the Swamps / Testing
Message-ID: <[SRI-NIC.ARPA]Fri,.19.Feb.88.06:21:34.PST.STJOHNS>
Date: 19 Feb 88 14:21:00 GMT
References: <8802191259.AA15618@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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Stan, the reason no one has done this (and it has crossed my mind
more than once) is that is leaves them liable  to  a  law  suite.
Without  some  sort of *formal* testing procedure, with objective
results, a vendor could sue and most probably win if I got up and
said  its product didn't work.  Unfortunately, passing the formal
testing is no guarantee of being able to interoperate.

We could start holding the internet bake-offs as an annual  event
and  publish  a  matrix  of who could talk to who and the type of
performance we saw.  And we  could  also  publish  which  vendors
declined to compete.  Comments?