[e2e] Congestion control is not mandatory?

[Ted Faber]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 12:02:42AM +0200, Michael Welzl wrote:
> > > This is curious ... it just occured to me that RFC 2581 is
> > > just a Proposed Standard.
> > > 
> > > That means that I can build a fully conformant TCP/IP
> > > which does not do congestion control, doesn't it?
> > 
> > RFC 1122 says (on page 89):
> > 
> > 	Recent work by Jacobson [TCP:7] on Internet congestion and TCP
> > 	retransmission stability has produced a transmission algorithm
> > 	combining "slow start" with "congestion avoidance".  A TCP MUST
> > 	implement this algorithm.
> > 
> > 
> > So that's a "no."  Or maybe a MUST NOT.
> 
> Ok, so you answered my question. Still, there are the somewhat
> weird facts that i) here's a standard RFC referencing a paper
> (not an RFC) with MUST implement while there's an RFC that
> specifies what's needed, and ii) RFC 2581 is a Proposed Standard.

I think this is largely inertial.  This is one of the RFCs that the tcpm
WG over in teh IETF is hoping to advance to DS, but the problem is
interested competent manpower.  If you'd like to join that set, we'd
love to have you.  I'd express that interest over in the tcpm mailing
list.   I know you know where it is. :-)

If any of the authors of 2581 would like to pipe up here or on tcpm and
tell me I'm wrong, I won't be offended.

-- 
Ted Faber
http://www.isi.edu/~faber           PGP: http://www.isi.edu/~faber/pubkeys.asc
Unexpected attachment on this mail? See http://www.isi.edu/~faber/FAQ.html#SIG 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://www.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20040915/69ae1ae9/attachment.bin