[e2e] the evolution of deployability

[J. Noel Chiappa]

    > From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed at reed.com>

    > routing protocols were being rolled out with no change in IPv4
    > whatsoever

Ummm, some of us saw those protocols as fairly minimal tweaks to a limiting
(and flawed) basic model. People who tried to do routing things which were
significantly more radical (and interesting) found that the basic IPv4
semantics/syntax were *really* crippling. See, e.g., RFC-1753.

    > IPv6 had been invaded by ISO/OSI bellhead thinking. .. Creeping
    > featurism took over.
    > ..
    > a system called FS ... It was an all encompassing comprehensive design
    > The end result was a system that could not be delivered, met no
    > customers' needs (but ALL of their requirements!)

Sure you're not thinking of DiffServ? :-)

    > Where was the simple IPv6 that was designed to be a small upgrade by
    > its original proposers? .. IPv6 should be called the "anything but IP"
    > project. Major offenders were those who tried to embed new router
    > technologies in it, although I'd add high marks for those who tried to
    > force their dreams of QoS into it as well. 

??? "new router technologies"? And as for "dreams of QoS", other than the
flow-id field, how is anything in IPv6 really different from IPv4 in this
area?

    > But the worst were those who saw NAT and other middleboxes coming to
    > put twisty passages into the network, and did nothing to compete for
    > those real customers with real money and real needs.

I think you're being a little harsh on the vendors - after all, if you're
company A, and you have $X to spend on product development, would you rather
spend it offering i) a solution that required your (potential) customers to
upgrade all their hosts, or ii) a solution *just like the one your
competitor B was offering* that only made people install a single box?

In other words, if you ask a business "would you rather lose or maintain
market share", which do you think they would answer?

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in our selves..." In the
end, the network did what the users wanted.

	Noel