Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!TWG.COM!mrose
From: mrose@TWG.COM (Marshall Rose)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Does TCP/IP "comform" to ISO/OSI?
Message-ID: <4634.589310996@twg.com>
Date: 3 Sep 88 17:29:56 GMT
References: <12427425203.27.PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 38

Michael --

    In some dusty file on me in Washington, D.C., there is a directive
which states:

	DO NOT ALLOW THIS PERSON NEAR NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

It is in circumstances like this that I can appreciate why this is so.
Otherwise, I would certainly have atomized you by now!

From Karn's perspective (in a message which you admit you hadn't seen),
he asserted that you do not need a session layer and that the
presentation layer should be application-specific.  This points
precisely to my hammer and nail analogy:

You TCP/IP purists are so convinced that you have the world's most
wonderful transport protocol (which is probably true, certainly it is true
in comparison to TP4) that you have spent relatively little time on the
things that go above TCP.  Yes, you have applications, and yes they work
(fairly well, given their limited scope), but there is very little
unified thought behind them other than that age-old maximum, "Use TCP raw".

The OSI people are miles ahead of your ARMites in this regard.  There is
where the "whole picture" I was referring to is, rather than what you
took out of context.

With regards to those little nagging questions you have.  Now I must
congratulate you for having left your ARMrest in even considering such
issues.  You are showing quite a bit of profound thinking.  I happen to
disagree myself with the way some of the upper-layers of OSI is
arranged.  Regardless, at least they have a framework, it does work
(at least I use it quite heavily and it works for me), and we can learn
from that.

I'd comment on the rest of your message, but I will wait until after
you've read Karn's original message.  No point in attacking you unjustly...

/mtr