[ih] ARPANET pioneer Jack Haverty says the internet was never finished

[Miles Fidelman]

Thanks for the pointer.

Unfortunately, the document seems to be a rehash of things we've all 
known and said for years, while the discussion seems not to get into 
what we actually DO to get back on the path of truth, justice, and the 
interoperable way.

Meanwhile, we keep getting more and more walled gardens, and things like 
DMARC to break things that are working.

We need something more forceful - like the TCP/IP Flag Day.  Big 
customers who demand interoperable standards (I'm reminded of how Wang 
Labs lost their position, as the Army's main computer vendor, when they 
dragged their feet on implementing a DoD protocol stack.  Personally, I 
think that was the beginning of the end, for Wang.)

Sigh...

Miles Fidelman



Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Miles,
>
> You might want to look at
> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-nottingham-avoiding-internet-centralization-02.html 
>
> which is discussed at
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/architecture-discuss
>
> Regards
>    Brian Carpenter
>
> On 06-Mar-22 04:05, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
>> Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>>>
>>> IMHO, if there were a ubiquitous IP-level multicast of some type that
>>> could be observed to actually work in the vast reaches of the
>>> Internet, people (app developers) who could use it would do so.
>>>
>>> But "ubiquitous" is important - a mechanism that only works in some
>>> places isn't as valuable as one that works everywhere  (a corollary of
>>> Metcalfe's Law?).   A mechanism that only exists in one or a 
> few ISPs
>>> isn't useful unless you expect all your customers to be using that
>>> ISP(s), and all of the network paths your customers use (to interact
>>> with their own customers etc) are also confined to that same ISP(s)
>>> who support the mechanism. Those ISPs of course would need their
>>> equipment vendors (routers, switches, hosts, whatever) to also play
>>> the same game.
>> Exactly.  Which leads to two questions that still remains unclear:
>>
>> - If everyone enabled it, how capable, and scalable, is the current
>> version of IP multicast?  Judging from my experience with DIS, on the
>> Defense Simulation Internet - it can support some very large,
>> challenging, real-time training exercises (MMORPGs for folks who use
>> real ammo).  But those exercises are one-offs.  A far cry from, say,
>> supporting a million videochats.  What are the limits?  Are there any
>> clear paths to scaling (if anyone were motivated to)?
>>
>> - How much of the lack-of-support is driven by technology, how much be
>> administrative complexity, how much by commercial factors?
>>
>>>
>>> That didn't happen so people invented whatever adhoc mechanisms they
>>> needed at some "higher level" where they could just write the code
>>> themselves - continuing the "rough consensus and running code", and
>>> put their own "servers" (e.g., CDN equipment) wherever it was needed,
>>> relying only on the basic unreliable IP datagram delivery service to
>>> be ubiquitous.
>>>
>>> Such "silo-ization" seems to be everywhere now and increasing
>>> ....email, messaging, video chat, forums, ....
>>
>> I'm not sure that's the primary explanation.
>>
>> Seems to me that, back in the day, resource & information sharing were
>> the prime drivers for the net - making connectivity and interoperability
>> core drivers.  (C.f., Metcalfe's Law).
>>
>> Since commercialization of the net, it seems like capturing market share
>> has become the fundamental driver - leading to intentional creation of
>> walled gardens.  Without much effective pushback.
>>
>> I'm reminded of the early days of email:  There was a time when access
>> to Internet email was a selling point for Compuserve.  Today, folks are
>> selling private email (and chat) based on privacy, codes of conduct (or
>> lack thereof), etc.  (Discord doesn't grow because it adds value, it
>> grows because it's an alternative to Facebook). We're almost back to the
>> days when Boston had a dozen phone companies - each promoting itself
>> based on its user base - and every business needing to have a dozen
>> phones on the desk.  (Kind of ironic, that Microsoft Exchange supports
>> email and calendaring standards better than anybody else.)
>>
>> (By the way, not a hypothetical for me, right now - as I'm about to
>> launch a new venture that has a major social-networking component.
>> Struggling with which standards to build around, and how to gateway to
>> other environments - so that we can operate across, and independent of,
>> the growing myriad of platforms.)
>>
>>>
>>> Sigh,
>>> Jack
>>>
>> Sigh, indeed,
>> Miles
>> :-(
>>


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown