Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!A.ISI.EDU!PADLIPSKY From: PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU (Michael Padlipsky) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Some alternatives to OSI Message-ID: <12486384267.18.PADLIPSKY@A.ISI.EDU> Date: 15 Apr 89 18:37:20 GMT References: <3489@robin.cs.nott.ac.uk> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 26 Julian-- Although I wouldn't think of violating the author's request not to comment, I do feel a gloss for the cis-Atlantic audience is required: "Bean tin" (English) = "Tin can" (Amerenglish) And for your own interest and amusement, though I wouldn't think of bothering the author with it, we might observe that there is a deep sense in which the OSI protocols share in the advantage of not being invented by ISO. (They were, of course, reinvented--and badly, as witness the fact that the ARPA protocols do indeed offer some "session" and a lot of "presentation" FUNCTIONALITY, they just don't overcomplicate life by instantiating them in rigidly hierarchical layers. But, then, I daresay you knew that, just as you knew who invented Layering and Virtualizing ... and just as you knew that the FTP spec contains a checkpoint-restart facility, even if nobody implements it--the real advantage of ISO being, after all, that they presumably will be able to enlist Interpol as the cadre of the International Protocol Police.) Oh, by the bye, is the University of the Outer Hebrides convenient to Islay? If so, I'd be glad to visit some time, since Islay is where several important facilities in my real field of research interest are (e.g., Lagavulin, Laphroaig, and Port Ellen Maltings), and the day and a half I spent there in '86 wasn't at all an exhaustive research expedition, merely a preliminary dig. cheers, map -------