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

[Dave Taht]

Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net> writes:

> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 1:29 AM Brian E Carpenter
> <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     Responding to two messages in one:
>     
>     >> I wonder when (and if) the Internet ever graduated from
>     "interim
>     >> solution" status...
>     >>
>     >> /Jack Haverty
>     
>     In Europe, it was somewhat official when RARE, the research
>     networks'
>     association (later renamed TERENA and now named GÉANT) recognized
>     TCP/IP
>     as an acceptable solution in January 1990 "without putting into
>     question 
>     its OSI policy." I think that Dennis Jennings' choice of TCP/IP
>     for NSFnet
>     in 1986 (?) was determinant in the US.
>     
>     A related question is when the various OSI strategies were
>     formally dropped.
>     Possibly never, because of the amour-propre of civil servants.
>     
>
> I've argued that the OSI vs. TCP/IP process went through multiple
> stages.
>
> Dennis' decision to adopt TCP/IP for NSFNET was critical. What it led
> to was a boom in TCP/IP deployment and thus TCP/IP-based networking
> engineering expertise and products. By 1988/1989, the market for
> TCP/IP products was much bigger (and visibly so) than OSI and we had
> (a small number of) thousands of network engineers who understood how
> to put together and operate TCP/IP networks. Furthermore, it was clear
> that Novell's solutions didn't scale nicely, so the world-wide network
> interconnection space was TCP/IP's, barring unexpected bumps.
>
> But saying that out loud was a good way to invite retribution. I
> suffered one such case in 1989 when in a public forum about network
> management, I wanted to point out that the OSI network management
> protocols wouldn't work. But I inadvertently said "OSI won't work",

It was almost a firing offense at two companies I worked at to say
anything bad about OSI in the 85-94 timeframe. It was a massive geek vs
management disconnect. TCP/ip kept working, kept evolving, kept
spreading. OSI, kept drowning us in documents and marketing materials,
and even the IPX/SPX ruled my part of the world and they'd solve
long distance communication "real soon now".

It was far from the first time "word from above" was disregarded by
geeks not on the golf course.

I'm a big fan of the kelly johnson rules for engineering, particularly
the one about the designers being on the "shop floor" as the thing is
built.

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/legendary-skunk-work-founder-kelly-johnsons-rules-of-ma-1708050659

Not just the internet as we know it, but so many other projects have
been doomed or delayed in places where the devs go home at 5 and throw
the "finished" code over the wall to the sysadmins to deploy. The
disconnect nowadays between "rough consensus" in the ietf vs "running
code" is one thing that makes me nine kinds of crazy. If it were up to
me I'd cut ietf meetings to half a day discussing things and the other
half to developing them, much like the linaro conferences do.

actually... given the deployment backlog from "established standards" to
actual deployment, maybe code should be 9/10s of the work for a while.

... in retrospect ...

I think one of the things that helped kill novell was their attempt at
selling x.500 services in 92, in an overcomplicated, underworking
design. they made the wrong bet here.

> which was understood in context, but got picked up by a reporter... As
> late as 1991/1992, the IAB still felt it needed to nod towards OSI in
> official statements, even though it was clear OSI was dead. It took a
> while for that need to be politic to go away.
>
> Notably, post-Kobe, the IETF promptly killed all its OSI-centered WGs.

Learning more about kobe is on my todo list.

> Craig