[e2e] end of interest -- BP metadata / binary vs text

[David P. Reed]

Rajesh - I am really sorry if what I wrote implied any sense that you 
should stop posting!  That was not my intention at all.

I was using your post to comment on the rhetoric of Internet 
architecture that has grown up in the community, and in particular the 
assumption that formal layering of the ISO sort  (strict and unique 
function placement into a totally ordered set of layers) is or was a 
crucial and important part of the Internet's design.

No disparagement of you or the rest of your posting and its arguments 
was intended.

Keep posting.  Arguments are all we have going for us to organize a 
complex and difficult world.

- David

Rajesh Krishnan wrote:
> David,
>
> My objective was to provoke discussion on the topic of whether it makes
> sense to think of DTN as a session layer, as an overlay above TCP, etc.
> from the e2e perspective.  If you feel this topic is unsuitable for
> discussion here, I will gladly stop posting on this topic here of
> course.
>
>   
>> I am afraid that those who treat the RFCs as scripture from high priests 
>> mistake dogma for thoughtfulness.
>>     
>
> I am definitely not treating RFCs as scripture.  I am not satisfied with
> the explanation that DTN/BP belongs to the "session layer" as the best
> or only model.  I find this limiting, since DTN issues span all the way
> from applications to the physical "layer".
>
>   
>> The essential valid measure of DTN ideas is that they work, and will 
>> continue to work well, *to organize the solution* to an interesting 
>> class of real-world problems.   It is irrelevant whether they provide 
>> the basis for destroying some "traditional paradigm" and creating a new 
>> religion.
>>     
>
> Agreed.  If anyone reads my post as being about destroying old religion
> and creating a new one, that is missing the point.  It is about getting
> out of old shackles though; why keep doing the same thing (like the way
> we fit seem to try to fit DTN into the old mold) and expect a different
> result?   If we say DTN is in the session layer, we will engineer a
> useful DTN session layer alright, but will a DTN session layer solve any
> fundamentally new problems?  Does that limit new architectures that
> could be explored?
>
>   
>> What made the Internet architecture useful was its attention to 
>> "interoperation" and to facilitating support of "unanticipated" 
>> applications and implementation technologies.  It framed those things 
>> well, making progress possible.  DTN ideas frame a new set of issues 
>> well - communcations that occur between entities that occupy 
>> discontiguous regions of space-time influence.   Such communications 
>> have always existed (books communicate across time in personal and 
>> public libraries, postal letters transcend spatial barriers in 
>> self-contained form) - DTN's merely ratify their importance by focusing 
>> framing on those issues.
>>     
>
> Agreed.  In a DTN, among other things, we want to maximize the value of
> information exchanged within a transitory encounter, and this can not be
> framed entirely as a session-layer issue.  Relegating DTN to the session
> layer will completely isolate it from a radio-aware CLA (or whatever
> name we want to call it) among other things, which relates to a point
> you made earlier.
>
> Hope that clarifies my original post somewhat.
>
> Best Regards,
> Rajesh
>
>   
>> Rajesh Krishnan wrote:
>>     
>>> Granted this matches the viewpoint presented in RFC 5050 of BP's
>>> (non-threatening ;) relationship to TCP/IP.
>>>
>>> By including forwarding and dynamic routing (L3?), retransmissions
>>>       
>> (L4?
>>     
>>> and L2?), and persistent storage and application metadata tagging
>>>       
>> (L7?)
>>     
>>> concerns within the same protocol, BP does not fit harmoniously at
>>>       
>> L5 of
>>     
>>> the TCP/IP Internet, IMHO.  This challenge to traditional layering
>>>       
>> is
>>     
>>> precisely what I find most fascinating about DTN.
>>>
>>> With the CLA/BP split, there is still layering in DTN; just that the
>>> layering is not congruent to conventional TCP/IP layering.
>>>       
>> Effectively,
>>     
>>> DTN/BP seems to relate to TCP/IP more or less the same way IP looks
>>>       
>> at
>>     
>>> other network technologies.  At least that is my interpretation of
>>> DTN/BP as an overlay abstraction (TCP/IP is relevant only as
>>>       
>> expedient
>>     
>>> means for early deployment.  ;)
>>>
>>> I am speaking only for myself here (not past or present employers or
>>> funding agencies or IRTF WGs), and this thread ought to migrate to
>>> dtn-interest perhaps.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Rajesh
>>>       
>
>
>
>