Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!munnari!kre From: kre@munnari.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.protocols.misc,comp.sources.wanted Subject: Re: OSI-model software Message-ID: <1710@munnari.oz> Date: Sat, 20-Jun-87 12:18:32 EDT Article-I.D.: munnari.1710 Posted: Sat Jun 20 12:18:32 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 06:55:51 EDT References: <223@diab.UUCP> <233@idacrd.UUCP> <526@alliant.UUCP> <638@faline.bellcore.com> Organization: Comp Sci, Melbourne Uni, Australia Lines: 106 Xref: utgpu comp.dcom.lans:507 comp.protocols.misc:75 comp.sources.wanted:1216 In article <638@faline.bellcore.com>, karn@faline.UUCP writes: > Among the major flaws of the ISO Reference Model are: > > 1. A fixed number (7) of layers. These are just conceptual layers, and they don't (and aren't mean to) include layers in application processes. You can recursively redefine any of those layers as much as you like for whatever purposes are appropriate (eg: level 2 on lans has llc and mac, but its all still level 2 .. point to point). > 2. It completely ignores internetworking. This is rubbish. > They claim you don't need all that reliability [TP4] if you're running on a > PTT network, but of course the real reason is that they're scared to > death of internetworking. There's no way a PTT is going to allow it to > happen unimpeded. I think your arguments about PTT fears need a little examination. Most of the world's PTT's don't need standards to control the world's networking (this is outside the US). In most countries the PTT's have a legal monopoly, they don't need this kind of extra second hand pseudo-protection. I have no love for PTT's and their regulations, however before discounting all their arguments, its worth placing yourself in their position for a while. Let's indulge in a little whimsy. Imagine yourself offered the job of director general (or whatever its called) of the arpanet (and nsfnet, span, csnet, etc for fun). You're naturally overjoyed, as quite apart from the 6 (or perhaps 7) figure salary, you're finally going to be able to stamp out all this OSI nonsense on the arpanet, and get things finally back on the straight and narrow of TCP/IP. So far, so good, everything's running smoothly, until one day there's a rash of "hacker" breakins at military institutions doing weapons research, and evidence is that this comes from the educational (research) side of the net .. the part you are in control of. Big stink in the press, congressmen up in arms, the lot. Of course, no-one suggests that OSI would have been any better (that's not my point). But, finally someone raises a question... the US goverment (the taxpayer) is paying for these hackers to wreak havoc on the US national security, Why? This must be stopped at once. In one of those amazing happenings in the US congress and Senate a bill is passed, and receives Presidential assent, all within a day. It denies any goverment funding to the networks. Not only direct funding, but indirect funding through research grants, contracts, etc, and denies tax deductions for gifts to any organizations that use any of the gift for networking purposes. Congress is really mad! Now, you have something of a problem. Here you are in charge of this network that has no money, and the bills are starting to come due. How are you going to solve this problem? You can try and get people to donate funds out of the goodness of their hearts, but somehow I doubt that is going to work. You're likely to have to reach the position where you have to actually charge real money to the people who use your networks. You're more or less in the position of the PTT's in the rest of the world, you're running a business, and you have to at least break even, if not make a profit, or your network collapses. It might be instructive to explain how, with the current internet setup, and using the standard IP based protocols (which of course you have the authority to change if you want) you are going to make all this work. Nb: I mean the whole internet here, including all those sites that have slip, and csnet x.25, links to the lucky few on net 10. > I have nothing > against migrating to an international standard if it is provably > superior to what we have (e.g., the metric system vs the English system) > but this is *not* the case with OSI in its present form. You're right, OSI is not ready for use yet, it needs some more work (though many of the individual protocols are perfectly ok). But asking for it to be provably superior is asking too much. It might never achieve that in the sense you mean. What it will be is demonstrably more widely available. That is, one day you will be able to connect to us (in Australia) using OSI. Chances are you never will be using TCP. Which is strange, as we run TCP now, so do you. Neither of us runs OSI... (But the US government won't allow us to connect to you using TCP, we would have to get some special dispensation to allow packets from outside the US onto the arpanet, and that's simply not worth bothering with). We could set up some direct TCP link (possibly over an X.25 carrier..., it would certainly be over some PTT carrier, as that's all that's available) but then you would have to take special precautions to make sure none of our packets escape. What great internetworking! Remember that continually bemoaning the lack of readiness of the ISO protocols does nothing to help them get completed. You'd be better assisting ISO, I know that you have lots of TCP knowledge, you must have plenty of experience that would be quite valuable, and perhaps you could be helping to prevent some of the mistakes that you see ISO making, instead of just complaining about them. kre ps: Phil .. mail to you on the backbone list is being addressed to bellcore!bellcore.com!karn (or something similar) and is making bellcore's mailer dump core (SIGSEGV), you might want to look into that.