[e2e] Open the floodgate

[Bob Braden]

  *> 
  *> but in the community that were the True Defenders of the One Faith of
  *> TCP, it became short hand for "Bad Idea" - i think i may be being a bit
  *> of a revisionist, but I dont think One True Fair, or Bad Idea type
  *> discussions help us with moving along. there are pieces of XTP worth
  *> understanding....
  *> 

Well, Jon, while we are talking about history...

I guess I have to plead guilty to having been a Defender (but probably
not "True") of the TCP/IP faith, but the fact is that the XCP folks
were on a jihad against TCP/IP, and it was not possible to hold
meaningful discussions with them.  They, quite a lot more than for the
Internetters, thought they worshiped the One True Faith.

It is my impression that some of the disappointed supporters of XCP
came back later to boost ATM as the One True Faith, the One Ring to
Rule Them All.

  *> and there are other protocols worth reading up on (TP4, delta-t, VMTP,
  *> etc) which also have things to offer. and we need to stay abrest of the

BTW, there WAS an End-to-End (task force) at the time, which discussed
all of these transport issues to some depth.  This was before the IETF
got into gear, so the E2E TF looked for important new E2E (and a few
not-quite-E2E, like IP multicast) technologies to bring into reality in
the Internet.  The High Priest of XCP came to one of our meetings to
describe his religion.  The discussion was polite, but we were not
convinced.

The E2E WG also danced several dances with Dave Cheriton's VMTP.  Yes,
it had a number of interesting ideas, but it too suffered from too many
ideas, interwoven in a somewhat impentrable manner.  There were also
worries about VMTP's possible impact on TCP congestion control (and
collapse).

Delta-T was of course seminal, and hopefully every CS graduate
student has encountered it in studying transport protocols.

  *> new techniques (control theory for rate and window management,
  *> information theory for transmssion on wireless) that mean we can do
  *> things that were NOT done in the past, or if done, only understood
  *> through a glass, darkly

VJ's work was based on control theory. In fact, Van came to the Internet
community (and the E2E TF) from designing control systems for particle
accelerators.  So control theory is not a new idea.

Bob Braden