Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!A.ISI.EDU!PADLIPSKY
From: PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU (Michael Padlipsky)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Does TCP/IP "comform" to ISO/OSI?
Message-ID: <12428690586.25.PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU>
Date: 7 Sep 88 16:36:28 GMT
References: <4634.589310996@twg.com>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 84

Marshall--

"I would certainly have atomized you by now!"  you say?  How scholarly.
Even if Robert's Rules did apply here, I'd have a final point of personal
privilege coming, so I'll ignore Merton Campbell Crockett, smile most
aprreciatively at Rich Brennan, and go along with Bill Northlich.  Indeed,
just to demonstrate that threats of nuclear retaliation don't intimidate
me, I must go one more round, even though I do believe that if you'd read
my last msg more carefully you'd have felt like the atomizee rather than
the atomizer.  I, after all, wasn't the one who said "OSI (levels 3&4) is
still quite silly at times" and "some of the actual parts are pretty lousy"
while complaining about those who weren't "trying to appreciate the entire
picture"; I merely called you on it.

Phil Karn's msg--which I presume is what made you "sad", not Phil himself,
even making due allowances for your rhetorical practices (which do take me
back to the old days when I was teaching Freshman Comp. and the book called
them Propaganda Techniques)--turned out to be no surprize when I saw it.
My reading of it is that he deplores the hypocrisy of those ISORMites who
tout The RM in public while the protocol designers flout it in private, as
I deplore it too, of course.  Why else would his climactic paragraph say
"But does ISO ever revise its preconceived ideas and admit its mistakes?
Of course not.  It just covers them over with ever more paper and
ad[vertizing] hype[rbole]."?

(Note, by the way, that it's a PT to say I "admit" I hadn't read it when
I sent my last msg.  Actually, I SAID I hadn't read it.  Nor did I need to,
since I could deal perfectly well with your response on its own demerits,
given that what you'd said about there being problems with some of the
constituents but "TCP extremists" [another PT] didn't understand the
whole led directly to my apparently too effective restatement.  [In case
you're wondering, yes, sarcasm is viewed unfavorably by some observers,
but I don't account it an out-and-out Propaganda Technique like, say, the
mud-slinging "extremists" bit.  But, then, it's been a long time since I
studied such things and it would only use up too much of my norepinephrine
reserves if I worried about them any more.]  And while I'm parenthesizing,
I should also mention that I have tried to be quite scrupulous about not
accusing you of using questionable linguistic ploys _consciously_; I
merely note that for whatever reason your msg to me was rife with them,
and, indeed, rather hope it wasn't being done consciously.)

I don't see Phil saying We've Got the Only Answer, even if he did
omit the implicit "joke" symbol after the billboard line, and I'm certain
I haven't, despite your infelicitous hammer metaphor.  What _I'm_ saying
is that it's intellectually dishonest to claim that The RM Is The
Only Answer with one side of the mouth and ignore its stated precepts
with the other side of the mouth.  Yet that's what the ISORMites are
doing.  (I still cherish hopes that you yourself are an ISORMist, by
way, even if I've never gotten a [presumably jocular] death
threat from an ISORMist--or even an ISORMite, come to think of it--
before.)

Whatever useful stuff is being attempted at Layer [sic] 5-7 by the
ISORMists, it seems quite clear to me that it's being done despite,
not because of, the RM, with it's stated adherance to rigidly hierarchical,
5<->6<->7 layering/strait-jacketing.  Nor, as best I can determine, are the
appeals to "CASE" and "ACSE" being made just because the particular, current
Session and Presentation Standards are tainted apples at best; rather, it
seems to be because you _do_ need certain Session and Presentation
functionality "right now" in certain Application settings.  (With my
usual luck, the one _Connexions_ I can't find is the one the Index tells
me has your piece on "Applications in an OSI Framework" in it, so I can't
offer you your own words, but I do recall thinking that it was still more
evidence for my years-old "Layer [sic] 5-7" complaint when I read it.)

There is, I submit, a legitimate technical interest in whether there are
_correctable_ flaws inherent in The RM, no matter who has or hasn't
embraced The RM as a matter of organizational/governmental policy.
Do you suppose we can discuss without propaganda the question of whether
or not the L5-6-7 separation _ought_ to be viewed as mandatory, both
ways (i.e., both into the Host from the net and on up, and out of the
Host from the user/Application PI and on down), in which I for one
have a long-abiding technical interest, and leave emotionalism for
some other time?  Or is my asking that just opening the door for a
non-nuclear threat like (shudder) immersion in the sauce of rotten apples?

(Jocularly intended sarcasm aside, I'm really not convinced it's worth
the norepinephrine depletion to me if we can't raise the level of debate
a few notches.  Wanna try a round or two with above-the-belt blows only,
if only for the sake of novelty?  Or shall we let it go--each, I daresay,
quite convinced that he has "won"?)

    nonetheless, cheers, map
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