[ih] The story of BGP?

[Craig Partridge]

> But your basic point (about 20/20/hindsight) ties into something I've been
> pondering, which is 'why didn't the routing people (of whom I am one) move
> _promptly_ to do an EGP3, a short-term upgrade that would fix the most
> pressing problems - why did we all get de-railed into the whole expansive
> Open Routing thing'?
> 
> And I think the answer is that we looked at things very differently back then
> than we do/would now.
> 
> My sense/recollection is that we were more focused on doing a really good
> design - for the very long term, since I think we could all see the eventual
> lifetime and growth of the Internet - and not just throwing something
> together that would last us a couple of years. (Think DNS, which was clearly
> a design intended for indefinite life, and which has to some degree met those
> goals - although of course we've had to retrofit security.) If you look at
> the Requirements document for Open Routing, we clearly wanted to do something
> which would meet expansive long-term goals.

Hi Noel:

This doing it right long term versus doing something that solved an immediate
need issue shows up repeatedly in IETF behavior the period 1989-1994 or so.
Routing was one.  Network Management was another.  8-bit Email nearly got
wrapped around the axle too.

Craig