[ih] When did "32" bits for IP register as "not enough"?

[Dave Taht]

Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> writes:

> I think what you're seeing is that the various people and groups
> working on "the Internet" in the early times (80s) didn't have the
> same view of the goal. 

I think this is a very good split of approaches.

>
> The "let's experiment with new ideas for routing, protocols,
> congestion control, etc." crowd saw 32 bits as plenty for what they
> envisioned doing. This would include a lot of the DARPA "experimental"
> work. I suspect Vint didn't want yet another major change to TCP/IP to
> halt other experimental work in how to use the Internet for the year
> or two it would take to change all the software again.
>
> The "how do we build something for the whole planet" crowd saw 32 bits
> as totally inadequate. This would include the emerging ISPs who wanted
> a big market,

ISPs as I know them didn't start to emerge until about 1987 (uunet), and
1988 (netcom). 

> and the ISO designers targeting the long vision. These
> efforts produced a lot of paper, and software and hardware that worked
> if you adopted their particular "walled garden", but nothing with
> TCP/IP's universality that was embodied in things you could actually
> buy.
>
> IMHO, both were right in their positions. They were simply working on
> different problems, and probably didn't realize it at the time.
>
> TCP/IP was later widely viewed as the "interim system" to be used
> outside of the experimental world, while the ISO et al were getting
> the final system in place. It worked well enough, and much better than
> anything else that was available. Plus there was a small army named
> IETF tweaking and patching the system to solve operational problems
> that came up.
>
> That "interim solution" viewpoint sidestepped a lot of bureaucratic
> obstacles since it was easier to get approvals, and fight fewer
> battles, for an interim stopgap.

I think the IP stack's development vs the other stacks' development
were one of the first cases of lessig's "code is law" dictum. Also
the low entry cost (ISO standards *cost*), the earlier deployment
of running code, etc.

Still what astonished me back then was that IPX/SPX wasn't successfully
extended - it ruled the lan then outside of the few campuses that had
tcp/ip. It fit into 64k. It was far from certain up until, oh, 1995 or
so, that IPv4 "would win", not just against decnet, ipx/spx, netbui, but
against ipv6!

>
> I wonder when (and if) the Internet ever graduated from "interim
> solution" status...
>
> /Jack Haverty
>
> On 2/13/19 2:34 PM, Ross Callon wrote:
>
>     There was some mumbling about 32 bits not being enough as early as
>     1980. In 1980 there was the beginning of the effort that became
>     CLNP. The first related proposal came out of BBN and NBS (National
>     Bureau of Standards, which is now called NIST) in 1980 and
>     proposed that what became CLNP should be just IPv4 with 64 bit
>     addresses and the source quench removed, and nothing else changed
>     other than the version. At the time BBN had a contract with NBS.
>     This proposal was taken into ANSI bound in bright orange cover
>     paper, which caused it to be unofficially named the “pumpkin
>     paper”. Around the same time I privately mentioned to Vint that
>     instead of going from an 8 bit network number plus a 24 bit subnet
>     address to class A,B,C addresses, instead they should go to 64
>     bits. He said this would be too disruptive. I didn’t find out
>     until the ROAD meetings many years later that someone else, I
>     think probably Bob Hinden, had told Vint the same thing at about
>     the same time. 
>     
>     
>     Of course, at the time I had absolutely no idea how to get anyone
>     to agree with this change, and I was unaware that ANSI and ISO
>     would be unable to get anyone to follow their standards. 
>     
>     
>     I recall the ROAD group as occurring while I was still at BBN,
>     which I left in 1988. As such the group must have met no later
>     than 1988. NAT was discussed. I thought that Van Jacobsen brought
>     the idea into the ROAD group although Paul Francis was also
>     participating, and there was someone else whose name escapes me
>     (possibly Vince Fuller) who was also proposing NAT, and of course
>     this doesn’t say whose idea it was originally. 
>     
>     
>     I think of CIDR as having two parts. One was just getting away
>     from the class A, B, C restrictions. I don’t know where this came
>     from. The other was assigning addresses topologically. I think
>     that the topological part came later than the “no A,B,C” part. 
>     
>     
>     Bob Hinden might remember some of this. 
>     
>     
>     
>     Ross
>     
>         
>         On Feb 13, 2019, at 5:01 PM, Noel Chiappa
>         <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>         
>         
>                 From: Craig Partridge
>             
>
>         NAT was a product of the ROAD (Routing and Addressing) working
>             group
>             
>
>         Err, I don't think so. AFAICR, the IETF stuck its head in the
>         sand for a long
>         time over NAT. (Which definitely has its downsides...)
>         
>                 I recall, NAT was Van Jacobson's idea
>             
>
>         He and Paul Francis/Tsuchiya independently invented it, I
>         think? I first heard
>         about it from Van at the IAB 'addressing/routing retreat', or
>         whatever that
>         meeting was called.
>         
>                 CIDR, I think, was Jeff Mogul's idea.
>             
>
>         I don't think so; I'm pretty sure Jeff was out of the IETF
>         world by then. Maybe
>         you're thinking of his earlier document on subnetting a la
>         MIT?
>         
>         CIDR came out of the ROAD meetings, but I don't know if it was
>         any specific
>         person's? Also, like I said, it was in mechanism identical to
>         Roki's
>         supernetting thing (in fact, the early RFC's on it call it
>         'supernetting', not
>         CIDR), although he had proposed it for a totally different
>         reason/need (IIRC,
>         he wanted a host on an X.25 VAN to be able to send packet to a
>         host on a
>         different VAN, without going through a router).
>         
>         Noel
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>     
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