Xref: utzoo comp.std.misc:36 comp.mail.misc:1169
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!bbn.com!rsalz
From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Standardizing Email?
Message-ID: <1027@fig.bbn.com>
Date: 16 Aug 88 14:28:31 GMT
References: <788@vsi.UUCP> <145@chiron.UUCP>
Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies, Inc.
Lines: 20

In comp.mail.uucp (<145@chiron.UUCP>), jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes:
>First, RFC 821 and 822 are industry standards.  X.400 is an international
>standard being produced by CCITT and ISO.
Not quite.  The TCP/IP protocol suite was developed for the Department of
Defense by an independent group of scientists and researchers.  No one
computer vendor had any particularly strong hand in their development.
The DoD suite has become an industry standard because it is a set of good,
solid protocols that have been worked on by a large number of highly
intelligent people.  They wanted something practical, and they did many of
the first implementations themselves.  The analogy to the early days of
Unix (V7) is striking.

The ISO mail and communications standards are being defined by an
international body, whose representatives are primarily the national
phone companies.  This is a broad generalization, and somewhat unfair,
but it's good enough.  Technical competence and practical solutions
have not been shown to be primary concerns.
	/rich $alz
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