Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!FLORA.WUSTL.EDU!guru
From: guru@FLORA.WUSTL.EDU (Gurudatta Parulkar)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: "Reliable Datagram" is an Oxymoron
Message-ID: <8810281518.AA05400@flora.wustl.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 88 15:18:06 GMT
References: <8810262031.AA01595@bel.isi.edu>
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> The word combination "Reliable Datagram" is an Oxymoron.  By definition a
>   datagram can not be reliable.  See RFC-791 Section 1.

On similar lines, it is important to understand that every 
connection-oriented protocol is not necessarily reliable, and it does
not necessarily use complex hop-to-hop and/or end-to-end flow and error
control mechanisms. 

I believe very soon we will have a situation where we cann't
differentiate between a quasi-reliable connection protocol and a
"smarter" datagram protocol except probably for their names.  

-guru

Dr. Guru Parulkar
Asst Professor             guru@flora.wustl.edu
Dept of Computer Science   parulkar@udel.edu 
Washington University      wucs1!guru@uunet.uu.net
Campus Box 1045, Bryan 509
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis MO 63130-4899 
(314) 889-4621