[e2e] end of interest

[David P. Reed]

Andrew -

I do exploration in Linux myself (I only run Windows in KVM, and only 
when I absolutely have to).  Regarding the Major Company's proprietary 
TCP code - I agree that minor tweaks to the TCP standard are adopted as 
long as the Major Company's programmers are the ones who act as 
gatekeeprs.  However, that's like what AT&T Bell Labs used to say when 
they disparaged the Internet Experiment in the 1980's - "when those 
lunatics working with Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn do something really 
interesting, we'll put it in our network".

And of course we have people on this list who view any attempt to deploy 
on the public Internet experiments among early adopters of Linux kernels 
(like the Fedora distribution) as "evil things" to be stopped as a 
matter of policy.

All of this puts grit in the gears of innovation by requiring that 
innovators "get permission" from those who want to preserve their market 
power.

Sometimes there is an actual risk, but mostly it's fearmongering like 
the AT&T argument against Hush-a-Phone.  (a plastic piece you added to a 
Bell phone that was reputed to have the potential of damaging the network).

If you have no hope of deploying most innovations without bargaining 
with Major Co., then why bother doing research?

- David

Lachlan Andrew wrote:
> Greetings David,
>
> Exploration can be done in Linux.  Talking to an author of a Major
> Company's proprietary TCP code, he seemed quite open to implementing
> IETF standards, provided they work with the middle boxes.
>
> Jon,
>
> One interesting end-to-end issue is congestion control.  That
> discussion has moved to the  iccrg  mailing list, which is quite
> active.
>
> Cheers,
> Lachlan
>
> On 18/04/2008, David P. Reed <dpreed at reed.com> wrote:
>   
>> I personally think that the network community has become frustrated with the
>> inability to explore end-to-end protocols because the endpoint stacks are
>> "locked in" by vendors in proprietary code.
>>
>>
>>
>>  Jon Crowcroft wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> last month's postings on this list was 80% CfPs;
>>> this month has 1 message which is a CfP;
>>> is this the end of interest in end-to-end?
>>>
>>> has the location/identifier debate mean everyone split?
>>>
>>> does virtualization mean unjustifying the ends?
>>>
>>> has mesh networking for nanotech
>>> or packet swarms and multipath routing diverted attention elsewhere?
>>>
>>> its not like there's no work out there - just look at
>>> this weeks NSDI programme:-
>>> http://www.usenix.org/event/nsdi08/tech/
>>>
>>> j.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>
>
>