[ih] NIC, InterNIC, and Modelling Administration

[Craig Partridge]

Hi John:

Sorry if I was not clear.

The issue was top down vs. bottom up.

My sense if you read Zim's paper and think about what was around at the time
it is clear that he's creating a top down organization into which to sort
proposals -- many of which he's not sure exist or what they will be.

That's top down mixed with some bottom up.

Thanks!

Craig

> Not exactly an apples and apple comparison.  When Telnet was done, no 
> one was quite sure what the architecture was.  By 1978, there was a 
> pretty good idea of what needed to be done and how to coordinate it.
> 
> The same could be said of the Internet model done a few years after 
> Zimmermann's paper.
> 
> Are you suggesting that standards should not build on current knowledge?
> 
> OSI was trying to assemble a set of standards.  It needed a 
> coordinating framework.
> 
> 
> At 9:45 -0500 2011/02/18, Craig Partridge wrote:
> >  > In what sense was OSI top-down? The OSI process was every bit as much a
> >>  bottoms-up, participant-driven process as IEEE 802 is today. If there
> >>  ever was a top-down standards process in the networking world directed
> >>  by two or three lords of the purse, it certainly wasn't OSI.
> >
> >If you read the original OS layering paper by Hubert Zimmerman it is
> >clearly a top-down management work plan.  Useful to compare it with
> >the ARPANET layering paper of a few years later.  The difference is Zim's
> >"here's how we'll break up the problem of developing standards" vs.
> >"here's why creating TELNET led us to a layered architecture".
> >
> >Thanks!
> >
> >Craig
> >
> >>
> >>  On 2/17/2011 4:16 PM, Eric Gade wrote:
> >>  >
> >>  > This also may just be a matter of dissonant worldviews. Where in OSI
> >>  > you see a series of discrete, technically explicit standards, I see an
> >>  > (overly?) ambitious, top-down standards project for computer
> >>  > networking that was unprecedented by international standards work at
> >>  > the time. It reflects a profounding optimistic perspective that relies
> >>  > on a consistently global view concerning the application of these
> >>  > technologies. Those involved in this overal project were obviously
> >>  > going to bring this optimism and global perspective to whatever
> >>  > related projects that they were involved with. IFIP people were
> >>  > involved with DNS and the work of IFIP was the closest related to the
> >>  > same issues that DNS addressed.
> >>  >
> >********************
> >Craig Partridge
> >Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
> >E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
> >Phone: +1 517 324 3425
********************
Craig Partridge
Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
Phone: +1 517 324 3425