[ih] Ken Olsen's impact on the Internet

[John Day]

Yes, this is true.  The idea was that technology was moving fast 
enough that one needed to standardize to a point in the future.

The mistake that OSI made which is at the root of all others was 
inviting the PTT to participate as a joint project.  Their desires 
were definitely rooted in maintaining the status quo.  Most of the 
flaws in the OSI model can be traced to the PTTs.  Although some were 
just the state of understanding and are found in the Internet 
architecture as well.

So is standardizing to a point in the future a bad idea?  It is 
always hard to predict the future, but what the future needs is 
usually at a more detailed level than the standards need to address.

But as with any standards process the most important thing is to get 
them reasonably stable before most people think they are important.

At 14:46 +0000 2011/02/14, Eric Gade wrote:
>On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Miles Fidelman 
><<mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>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.
>
>
>
>--
>Eric
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