[ih] XEROX/PUP and Commercialization (was Re: FYI - Gordon Crovitz/WSJ on "Who Really Invented the Internet?")

[Vint Cerf]

the unexpected about-face towards OSI by DOD raised my blood pressure.
I am reasonably sure this came from the DCA people who touted X.25 and
lambasted datagrams and TCP/IP. I am not sure why NIST too the OSI
path but I guess the idea that it was an ISO standards effort led some
to think it was unlikely that a DOD-developed protocol would ever be
acceptable to the rest of the world while the cold war was one, etc.

hah!

v


On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 12:06 AM, Dave Crocker <dhc2 at dcrocker.net> wrote:
>>
>> In any event, your extended list of government proactive efforts for
>> TCP/IP usage are well-taken.
>>
>> But to riff off of a phrase that Marshall Rose coined -- with enough
>> thrust, pigs /can/ fly -- some of the alternatives would have required
>> planetary levels of thrust.
>
>
>
> Most on the list will remember, but so far only a side reference to
> AutoDIN-II has acknowledged that US Government support for further
> development of TCP/IP was once not a forgone conclusion.  Shortly after the
> TCP/IP Flagday, much of the US Government was actively hostile to TCP/IP and
> proactively supporting OSI.
>
> The ISO OSI "ISORM" was mandated for civil and military procurements, much
> as ADA was for military. I've never been clear on whether this was a DOD
> peace treaty with NBS/NIST, or an attempt to bring NATO on-board for
> air-land-battle interop without offending them with US-centric standards, or
> undue influence from vendors who had greater sway in ANSI/ISO commitees than
> in NWG's where vendor advantage was not a proper concern. Probably an unholy
> combination. Some latterday supporters of TCP/IP were in the day actively
> selling the on-paper elegant, in practice baroque or not yet implemented,
> vendor-sponsored OSI style, calculating how much thrust their pig would
> require.
>
> (I was a couple doors down from Mike Padlipsky in the mid-80's -- I was on
> the periphery of the ADA vs MLS and Kernel vs Crypto battles -- so had a
> ring-side seat as one of Mike's confidants. I am the party guilty of
> referring his Tea Bag Papers to the PH Field-Editor, which Mike then
> expanded into /The Elements of Networking Style/. Hence my life sentence as
> Literary Heir.)
>
> Cheers (as Mike taught us to say),
>
> Bill Ricker
> custodian of the Padlipsky Archive
> @n1vux bill.n1vux at gmail.com