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<p>I think what you're seeing is that the various people and groups
working on "the Internet" in the early times (80s) didn't have the
same view of the goal. <br>
</p>
<p>The "let's experiment with new ideas for routing, protocols,
congestion control, etc." crowd saw 32 bits as plenty for what
they envisioned doing. This would include a lot of the DARPA
"experimental" work. I suspect Vint didn't want yet another
major change to TCP/IP to halt other experimental work in how to
use the Internet for the year or two it would take to change all
the software again.<br>
</p>
<p>The "how do we build something for the whole planet" crowd saw 32
bits as totally inadequate. This would include the emerging ISPs
who wanted a big market, and the ISO designers targeting the long
vision. These efforts produced a lot of paper, and software and
hardware that worked if you adopted their particular "walled
garden", but nothing with TCP/IP's universality that was embodied
in things you could actually buy.<br>
</p>
<p>IMHO, both were right in their positions. They were simply
working on different problems, and probably didn't realize it at
the time.</p>
<p>TCP/IP was later widely viewed as the "interim system" to be used
outside of the experimental world, while the ISO et al were
getting the final system in place. It worked well enough, and
much better than anything else that was available. Plus there was
a small army named IETF tweaking and patching the system to solve
operational problems that came up.</p>
<p>That "interim solution" viewpoint sidestepped a lot of
bureaucratic obstacles since it was easier to get approvals, and
fight fewer battles, for an interim stopgap.</p>
<p>I wonder when (and if) the Internet ever graduated from "interim
solution" status...<br>
</p>
<p>/Jack Haverty<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/13/19 2:34 PM, Ross Callon wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:584B5C1E-14B2-4C52-93CD-0E42B0B24C90@gmail.com">
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<span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">There was some mumbling
about 32 bits not being enough as early as 1980. In 1980 there
was the beginning of the effort that became CLNP. The first
related proposal came out of BBN and NBS (National Bureau of
Standards, which is now called NIST) in 1980 and proposed that
what became CLNP should be just IPv4 with 64 bit addresses and
the source quench removed, and nothing else changed other than
the version. At the time BBN had a contract with NBS. This
proposal was taken into ANSI bound in bright orange cover paper,
which caused it to be unofficially named the “pumpkin paper”.
Around the same time I privately mentioned to Vint that instead
of going from an 8 bit network number plus a 24 bit subnet
address to class A,B,C addresses, instead they should go to 64
bits. He said this would be too disruptive. I didn’t find out
until the ROAD meetings many years later that someone else, I
think probably Bob Hinden, had told Vint the same thing at about
the same time. </span>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">Of course,
at the time I had absolutely no idea how to get anyone to
agree with this change, and I was unaware that ANSI and ISO
would be unable to get anyone to follow their standards. </span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">I recall the
ROAD group as occurring while I was still at BBN, which I left
in 1988. As such the group must have met no later than 1988.
NAT was discussed. I thought that Van Jacobsen brought the
idea into the ROAD group although Paul Francis was also
participating, and there was someone else whose name escapes
me (possibly Vince Fuller) who was also proposing NAT, and of
course this doesn’t say whose idea it was originally. </span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">I think of
CIDR as having two parts. One was just getting away from the
class A, B, C restrictions. I don’t know where this came from.
The other was assigning addresses topologically. I think that
the topological part came later than the “no A,B,C” part. </span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class="">
</span></div>
<div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">Bob Hinden
might remember some of this. <br class="">
</span>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14px;" class="">Ross</span></div>
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Feb 13, 2019, at 5:01 PM, Noel Chiappa <<a
href="mailto:jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">From: Craig Partridge<br
class="">
</blockquote>
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">NAT was a product of
the ROAD (Routing and Addressing) working group<br
class="">
</blockquote>
<br class="">
Err, I don't think so. AFAICR, the IETF stuck its head
in the sand for a long<br class="">
time over NAT. (Which definitely has its downsides...)<br
class="">
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">I recall, NAT was Van
Jacobson's idea<br class="">
</blockquote>
<br class="">
He and Paul Francis/Tsuchiya independently invented it,
I think? I first heard<br class="">
about it from Van at the IAB 'addressing/routing
retreat', or whatever that<br class="">
meeting was called.<br class="">
<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">CIDR, I think, was Jeff
Mogul's idea.<br class="">
</blockquote>
<br class="">
I don't think so; I'm pretty sure Jeff was out of the
IETF world by then. Maybe<br class="">
you're thinking of his earlier document on subnetting a
la MIT?<br class="">
<br class="">
CIDR came out of the ROAD meetings, but I don't know if
it was any specific<br class="">
person's? Also, like I said, it was in mechanism
identical to Roki's<br class="">
supernetting thing (in fact, the early RFC's on it call
it 'supernetting', not<br class="">
CIDR), although he had proposed it for a totally
different reason/need (IIRC,<br class="">
he wanted a host on an X.25 VAN to be able to send
packet to a host on a<br class="">
different VAN, without going through a router).<br
class="">
<br class="">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>
Noel<br class="">
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