[ih] Protocol numbers (was IP version 7)

[Jack Haverty]

On 12/22/20 6:04 PM, John Gilmore via Internet-history wrote:
> Could anybody who is reading this list, who at one point got a protocol
> number assigned, please check if it can be released? 
Apparently I still "own" protocol 15 for XNET.   That happened sometime
in the 80s, when in a fit of organization I decided to write down the
details of the XNET protocol as more people got involved.  I was at BBN
at the time.

The IANA lists me for protocol 15, with my email address as
jhaverty at oracle.com.   That update probably occurred when I got some
other numbers assigned by IANA for database traffic (IIRC, port
numbers); it was easy, just a phone call to Jon Postel.  But my Oracle
address hasn't worked for the last 20+ years, so no one can contact me.

I've said this before, but again I hereby release protocol 15 (aka XNET)
and personally have no further use for it.   Also any port numbers which
may still be assigned to me.  However, these are a "quitclaim" releases,
since I have no idea who else may still be using these numbers.

>From a larger view, IMHO the Internet "governance" (IANA et al) have
released thousands of RFCs and assigned hundreds of numbers, but don't
seem to have any mechanisms to track how such things, i.e., numbers or
protocols, are actually used in the operational Internet.  So it's not
clear to me how to "release" anything....

/Jack Haverty