[ih] Making sense of the end-to-end arguments (or at least trying to)

[Richard Bennett]

I take it the book isn't available in any of the e-book formats. Pity.

RB

On 12/8/2010 3:16 AM, Matthias Bärwolff wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> it is my pleasure to announce the release of my PhD thesis on
> "End-to-end arguments in the Internet" as a self-published book on
> CreateSpace.com (https://www.createspace.com/3498028). Of course there
> is a perfectly fine free PDF version on my website, too
> (http://www.bärwolff.de/publications/2010-10-PhD-thesis.html).
>
> This is also an apt opportunity to thank all you folks for the feedback
> on many of my questions here on this list over the last two years. So
> without further ado, I'll let you go. If you have any feedback or
> questions about the book, just send me an email.
>
> Matthias
>
>
> P.S.: Some further asides for the not-too-hurried reader. The thesis is
> basically split into three big parts:
>
> - Part 1 reviews the genesis of the end-to-end arguments as a design
> principle of sorts, going back to early 1960s contributions by Paul
> Baran and running all the way to more timely elaborations of the merit
> of minimality of common shared spanning layers. I have not given too
> prominent a consideration to the notion of net neutrality; some
> footnotes go into that (tracing the notion to a 1999 Saltzer note, and,
> slightly more adventurously, to early 1970s Pouzin papers), but I have
> not given it a section of its own.
>
> - Part 2 then discusses the evolution the end-to-end arguments as a
> functions of actual networking (as opposed to theoretical reasoning)
> from the Arpanet to the Internet, along with aside notes about Alohanet,
> Ethernet, etc. The contribution of this part is somewhat less tractable
> than that of Part 1. At the very least, it brings a whole lot of
> instructive and somewhat novel data points to the table -- e.g.
> elaborating the inner structure of the Arpanet; the eventual "frazzling"
> of the Arpanet edges (VDH interface, TIPs, etc.); and the history of
> Arpanet raw messages as a somewhat direct predecessor to the later IP
> protocol.
>
> - Part 3 wraps up the thesis by adding some looser discussion about the
> merit, useful scope, limitations, and proper articulation of the
> end-to-end arguments. It somewhat defeats a two-sentence summary (and is
> also strictly speaking off-topic for this list) so go and read it for
> yourself.
>
> In all, the core of the thesis runs 160 pages; plus 277 pages of
> endnotes; plus 89 pages of literature; plus prelims and tables (toc,
> tof); plus, last but not least, a really cool index of interesting
> asides. While all of this jazz makes the most sense in the PDF version
> which features all conceivable hyperlinks forth and back; the links may
> also easily be followed manually (even from the endnotes and literature
> back to the main text).
>
> While the PDF is free, the book is $25, has a neat cover, and is
> available on CreateSpace as of now; it will also hit Amazon.com at
> around new year's eve, and eventually it will be on the international
> Amazon sites some time next January. Being the author, I can order
> copies of the book for some $12 and have them shipped to any US address
> of my choosing; so if you think that there is a good reason for you to
> have me get the book to you in some sort of out-of-band mutual deal,
> drop me an email.
>
>

-- 
Richard Bennett