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

[Joe Touch]

L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk wrote:
> Didn't we have this same conversation last January?
> 
> How is e.g. Microsoft any different with compound TCP being only an
> internet-draft:
> http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-sridharan-tcpm-ctcp-01.txt
> yet deployed widely in Vista?

It isn't; we were talking about Linux. I'll sneer at Windows too, if you
like, on this point.

> Doing the whole FreeBSD-sneering-at-Linux thing is, well, old. There
> are many academics using Linux, not least because it's not picky about
> what it runs on. You're ignoring the goofy elephant in the room.

Some academics do use Linux. Some use BSD. You're certainly right that -
depending on what you want as your base - Linux can be more enabling. If
you want support for arbitrary device, Linux wins, e.g.. If I want a
book that walks students through the networking source code, BSD wins, e.g.

For networking, I admit I am perplexed. On the one hand, we have a
system built by academics basically for research use. On the other, we
have a system designed most specifically not to look like BSD. I'm not
sure 'not being BSD' is the best core design criteria. However, yes,
that's an academic discussion.

> Stability doesn't come into it, if academic code is anything to go by.
> An academic views code as stable if it hasn't crashed on him recently,
> or if it gives usable results before (or even while) crashing. It's all
> about
> the results. Academics like results, and they like things that get them
> results easily.

Yes, and as I noted, BSD crashes never basically assumed file system
corruption like Linux did. Academics - who crash systems a lot in the
process of developing code - don't like systems that require complete
reinstalls inside the debug cycle either.

> And where's the research value and funding in working on an
> already existing standard?

There is research in working on new variants in a stable base; having
Linux - or Windows - add a variable to an experiment doesn't help.

Joe

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