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From: tcp-ip@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Interactive traffic punishment via MILNET?
Message-ID: <9850@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 15:34:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9850
Posted: Mon Aug 12 15:34:38 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 20:58:24 EDT
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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From: Dan 

Charles,  Your displeasure at some combination of ISI/BBN/DEC for the
sorry state of affairs in TCP updates/maintenance is noted.  Since I
was in the middle of that menage for a few years I can shed some
light (and dark?) on the subject.  There are two main issues:

1) Money
2) Research

Take the "research" issue first.  Many of the "problems" seen in TCP
usage are truly complicated and need to be examined carefully in the
diverse internet enviornment.  That brings up "money"...
DEC gets money for selling machines (and attendant software).
BBN gets money for doing research on networking (and for operating
some networks).
ISI gets money for running systems and keeping customers content.

The above simplifications are accurate enough for this diatribe.

The major flaw in the above division of effort is that the vendor,
DEC, does not spend enough money on making a great TCP for TOPS20.
They do not live in the Internet environment on a daily basis.
I am sure that they do a much better job with DECNET because they live
in that environment daily.  And make money on it.  
As for BBN, they have many fish to fry these days and have been
known to refuse to work on a problem unless they got paid for it.

ISI (where I was located from 1980-1983) basically gave up on both DEC 
and BBN as timely sources of help in resolving vexing performance
and functionaility problems.  We relied on them heavily for 
longer term solutions while we tried to keep our systems on
the air for our thousands of users.  
ISI would readily give out its code to anyone who had a source
license from DEC.  Of course the recipient would have to take out
our ISI site specific enhancements to get a running system...
And we did not have a lot of time/energy to promulgate and assist
others in the quest of a stable, high performance TCP.

That's a short recap in history.  What did we learn and what
can we do better in the future?  We learned that Internetting
is very complex, that declaring something to be a product
does not make it so, and that money is the root of all good.

I'd better cut it short on the "future" part.  Since TOPS20 is
dying I don't see much impetus (money) for improving the 
mechanisms in that arean.  But Unix sure ain't dead nor is VMS.
If improvements are to
be readily produced and distributed then I suggest that some
entity be formed (or identified as existing) and funded to do a quality job 
for all internet users.  Laissez faire just doesn't cut it.

Dan

PS.  I have been entering this via a Milnet TAC to the Arpanet host
at ISIB and have held my breath until now!  Geoff, thank you for
airing this subject.  The stuttering and delays are awesome.