[ih] Ken Olsen's impact on the Internet

[Miles Fidelman]

Eric Gade wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Miles Fidelman 
> <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>> wrote:
>
>     OSI was an attempt to impose a classical, top-down, standards approach
>
> It is my understanding that a top-down process is fairly uncommon as 
> far as the formation of international technical standards are 
> concerned, and that OSI was abberant in this regard.
Really? With the exception of IETF standards, I've seen pretty much 
everything else get written by committee, then promulgated, then fixed 
in later revisions.

As far as I can tell, the bottom-up model, based on "rough consensus and 
running code," as well as multiple interoperable implementations – with 
a very slow progression from experimental to recommended to mandatory – 
is unique to IETF.

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In<fnord>  practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra