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

[David P. Reed]

To Ian's point: there are two highly separated layers of decision making 
in Linux.  To wit: 1)the kernel developers (in which I include the net 
developers, though the groups are somewhat distinct), and 2) the distro 
makers.   The distro makers are free to enable or disable many of the 
options in the kernel they choose to ship - including TCP experiments as 
part of a broad "permanent beta program" that certain distros aspire to 
be.  Different distros may or may not do this.

I happen to have settled on Fedora as my "base distro".   I like it's 
risk-taking, relatively bleeding-edge approach of including the 
community in testing out new things (it's been called the "beta" for 
RedHat).   But you can also use RedHat Enterprise Linux (or the free 
version of that or Suse if you want conservative, carefully thought 
through non-experimental distributions.

The place to argue about what is distributed to the broad user groups 
who don't want to be part of the experimental linux community is with 
the distro builders in one or more of the distros that focus on "the 
general public".    Ubuntu perhaps should have a different philosophy 
about releasing experimental TCP features in its kernels than does Fedora.

Ian McDonald wrote:
> On Jan 4, 2008 6:36 PM, Joe Touch <touch at isi.edu> wrote:
>   
>> It's great that Linux has variants of TCP that users can enable. It's
>> irresponsible and/or sloppy to enable those experiments by default.
>>
>>     
> If that is your opinion then go argue your case on
> netdev at vger.kernel.org. I don't necessarily disagree but this is the
> area to debate it, not on this list (if you want change that is). I'm
> not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People
> there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there.
>
> Ian
>