[e2e] Protocols breaking the end-to-end argument

[David P. Reed]

I can't resist commenting on this:

On 10/24/2009 03:54 PM, Richard Bennett wrote:
> Like it or not, Noel, there was a lot of friction between the Network 
> Working Group and BBN over the control BBN had over the ARPANET 
> protocols inside the IMP. The interesting problems of the day in 
> protocol design were all behind the curtain to the people who used the 
> ARPANET, and that's frustrating to engineers. Nobody disagrees that 
> ARPANET was a huge first step in packet switching; but by 1981, people 
> were well into the second step, and the closed implementation of the 
> lower three layers was a problem. 

This is both irrelevant, and bizarre.  Again, Bennett focuses on imputed 
motivations to impugn people's professional actions.  There was no 
friction that mattered - protocols were not designed to carry out 
"anger".  Since Bennett was not there, I can only assume he is talking 
to some very angry people who were there.

In any case, lecturing Noel Chiappa, who has more experience with the 
Internet and networking by far seems to be an odd thing to try to do.  
I'd suggest people look at Bennett's resume at 
http://www.bennett.com/resume.pdf.   You might find his claims that he 
was responsible for some of the most important IEEE protocols a bit 
interesting.  I take no position on the claims.