[e2e] end of interest

[Jon Crowcroft]

I wouldn't be so worried for this reason but a more complex
one

I havnt seen any eveidence that having a world dominated by
microsoft client systems, unix server systems and
cisco-compliant router systems has caused problems for the
uptake of any decent ideas in layes 3 or 4

the problem is that we don't have a 2 stakeholder system
anymore - george michaelson hinted it when saying the meme
has forked ('Into a three-legged trouser.') 

the problem is that we have end systems, intermediate layer
2/3 systems and intermediate layer 3-7 systems, and so there
are THREE stakeholders in any change to the end-to-end 
model - anyone knows that three is a very stable (or
ossified) configuration.

actually, going back in time, I seem to dimly recall that
once upon a time there was only 1 system (somethign that
could send, receive or forward IP packets, e.g. according to
joe touch's mantra)....then there were two, as the market
split the world into sun and cisco, then microsoft woke
up....etc etc

but the key thing here is that we need to kill off one of the
systems to regain any chance of anyone (even a big player)
changing anything...

I don't see how to kill off middleboxes as they protect hosts
from bad guys (allegedly) so the only solution is to kill off
routers and replace them entirely with middleboxes....


errr...oops, that can't be right :-)
In missive <12D20F05-721A-47B7-890E-C9DA143D9919 at cisco.com>, Fred Bake
r typed:

 >>
 >>On Apr 19, 2008, at 4:12 PM, John Day wrote:
 >>
 >>> I might remind our readers that in 1970 none of us were worried  
 >>> about whether or not AT&T would use what we were doing.   
 >>> Admittedly, we were being paid for our trouble, but most of us were  
 >>> just interested in what would happen and what we would learn from  
 >>> it.  There is something amiss here.
 >>
 >>Thanks for saying that. I have been very disturbed by this thread.
 >>
 >>Cisco, my employer, and specifically the department I work in, funds  
 >>a fair bit of research into making things better. Reason: at the end  
 >>of the day, if things work better, people will buy more of our  
 >>products. Call that whatever you like; it is the fundamental  
 >>motivation of any Major Company to fund research. Now, if we're not  
 >>going to make things better, why fund the research?
 >>
 >>If your research isn't funded by a major company, then presumably you  
 >>hope that the outcome will be something different that Major Company  
 >>might have chosen. I came up the corporate side, not the research  
 >>side, but at the end of the day the success of whatever company I  
 >>worked for at the time depended on the notion that whoever was the  
 >>"Major Company" at the time was wrong. So far, I have been mostly right.
 >>
 >>If your research was funded by a Major Company, then you are betting  
 >>that improvements to the present model are a good thing.  
 >>Paradoxically perhaps, thus far the things we have learned on this  
 >>axis have been useful as well.
 >>
 >>I'm seriously wondering where the bitter folks who hate the  
 >>businesses that made the Internet a worldwide communication  
 >>infrastructure are coming from. Do they hate the Internet? Would they  
 >>rather have an Internet that was undeployed for lack of funding, and  
 >>therefore the system they the say they dislike because it is the last  
 >>viable business standing?

 cheers

   jon