<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">TCP/IP had an army, but OSI had nothing but civilians. It never was a fair fight. <br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Feb 16, 2019, at 12:36 PM, Brian E Carpenter <<a href="mailto:brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com" class="">brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">On 2019-02-17 02:03, Michael Kjörling wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On 15 Feb 2019 16:29 -0500, from <a href="mailto:vint@google.com" class="">vint@google.com</a> (Vint Cerf):<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">6. MOSAIC hits about 1993 followed by Netscape Communications and its IPO.<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">I'm curious about this point of yours. Why do you say that this was an<br class="">important deciding factor in the choice between OSI vs TCP/IP, or in<br class="">the commercialization of TCP/IP over OSI?<br class=""><br class="">I'm not saying that the Web was unimportant -- it absolutely was, and<br class="">is (just look at how many people think that the Internet _is_ the<br class="">World Wide Web) -- but is there something about the protocols which<br class="">makes it much easier to run HTTP over TCP/IP than over OSI?<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">At the relevant time (1991, when the first line-mode web browser was<br class="">developed, along with HTTP itself) the only general-purpose substrate<br class="">that Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau and Nicola Pellow found at their<br class="">disposal was TCP/IP. So most simply put, they had no choice. Running<br class="">HTTP over OSI was never an option in the real world.<br class=""><br class="">fwiw, it was by then two years after the rant** which marked my own<br class="">epiphany. Tim, Robert and Nicola were just users...<br class=""><br class=""> Brian<br class=""><br class="">** B.E. Carpenter, Is OSI Too Late?, RARE Networkshop 1989, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 17 (1989) 284-286, DOI 10.1016/0169-7552(89)90040-8<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Or was it<br class="">just the fact that by the time the Web came about, the world was<br class="">somewhat firmly established in the TCP/IP camp and so it became a<br class="">natural choice to focus on running HTTP over TCP/IP?<br class=""><br class="">I'll readily admit that my knowledge of the OSI stack is limited at<br class="">best.<br class=""><br class=""></blockquote><br class=""><br class="">_______<br class="">internet-history mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org" class="">internet-history@postel.org</a><br class="">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history<br class="">Contact list-owner@postel.org for assistance.<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">—<br class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Richard Bennett<br class=""><a href="http://hightechforum.org" class="">High Tech Forum</a> Founder</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Ethernet & Wi-Fi standards co-creator</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Internet Policy Consultant</div></div></div>
</div>
<br class=""></body></html>