Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!LABS-N.BBN.COM!mckenzie
From: mckenzie@LABS-N.BBN.COM (Alex McKenzie)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Does TCP/IP "comform" to ISO/OSI?
Message-ID: <8808260116.AA00367@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 25 Aug 88 21:22:52 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 14

It is my personal understanding (as an active participant in some of the ISO
groups) that the Reference Model was developed by ISO as a guide to how ISO
should think about the functional decomposition of service/protocol
standardization.  This is something of concern to ISO internally; not something
of external concern.  Thus there is no Conformance Statement clause in the
Reference Model standard, and (consequently) no objective way to evaluate the
claim that something does or doesn't "conform to the reference model".  Rather,
the Reference Model was made an International Standard so the world outside ISO
could see and understand (perhaps not agree with) the rules which were to
govern the development of standards for particular services and protocols by
ISO.

Regards,
Alex McKenzie