[e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet?

[Jim Gettys]

There is a fundamental divide that has to be overcome.

With a few exceptions (Ted T'so comes to mind), there has been few Linux
people who also have been exposed to actively participating in the IETF.

The culture has been that there are IETF (and other specifications) that
the Linux community read and implement.  And, as you note, they are
(often) volunteers, though these days, a large fraction of the key
developers are full time employees of various companies.

If this community wants to bridge this divide, I'd recommend some active
outreach.  Having worked in both communities, it is remarkable how few
faces are in common.

One opportunity is next week at Linux Conf Australia (in Sydney).  A
year ago, Van Jacobson gave the best talk I've attended in more than a
decade in New Zealand at LCA (it was the best talk of the conference,
and given twice as a result), and caused quite a bit of a stir and
ferment among the Linux networking people.  This kind of cross
fertilization is healthy for both communities, I believe.

Now I'll throw some stones at some of the academic research I've seen
done on Linux.

One of the fundamental tenants of Linux development is its continual
nature.  I've seen some very good academic work end up being entirely
ignored since, by the time the work was done, the work (which was based
on what had become a several year stale version of Linux), was hopeless
integrate into Linux.  

If you *really* want research that can be taken advantage of by Linux,
you have to understand Linux's development model, and be willing to pay
the price to keep up with ongoing development, and figure out how to get
from where Linux is, to where it should be in an incremental fashion. 

Particularly since the Linux 2.6 series started, "big bang" integrations
of large changes into the system never occur; it is always stepwise
evolution, and you have to work in this fashion, as part of the
development community.
                                   Regards,
                                        - Jim





On Tue, 2007-01-09 at 09:02 -0800, Joe Touch wrote:
> 
> Lynne Jolitz wrote:
> > But if it's not worth the time and effort for the academic side to
> > take on this charge, the marketplace will have to serve instead.
> 
> It's not whether academics want to spend the time and effort. Many are
> already giving it for projects they prefer (e.g., FreeBSD in my case);
> others have none to give (note the dearth of academics on the IESG,
> which requires letters of 80% support).
> 
> I.e., the effort of volunteers is subject to its own market as well.
> 
> However, the primary tension seems to be that:
> 	- standards bodies rely on emissaries from
> 	development communities
> 
> 	- development communities rely on volunteers
> 
> This may appear to suggest that the two communities are competing for
> volunteers, but that's not the case. We all *must* come together to work
> on standards; the same is not true for particular OS's.
> 
> Joe
> 
-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child