[ih] Installed base momentum (was Re: Design choices in SMTP)

[Dave Crocker]

On 2/9/2023 6:16 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> On 2/9/23 14:57, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
>> Such is the lesson of installed base momentum.
> I agree - the installed base is a formidable obstacle to getting any 
> kind of replacement propagated.   Stagnation and fragmentation into 
> silos seems to be the result, as players introduce a desired new 
> technology into just the components that they can control.
>
> But I also wonder -- How did TCP overcome the momentum of the 
> installed base?

How did Jan 1, 1983 succeed?  Money and mandate.  Benign 
authoritarianism can be a good thing.

Or how did the entire world move from its rich array of proprietary 
networks over to TCP/IP?

In the latter case, the inability to communicate between silos was 
increasingly irritating to the market.  And the OSI world did a really 
excellent job of marketing the idea of a seamless interoperability, 
though of course, it didn't deliver a workable solution.  As the market 
interest increased, there was only one viable solution....

It's not as if the entire world embraced TCP/IP smoothly or willingly.  
The oft-cited wars were many and oft-ugly.


> But almost overnight, actually over just a few years, TCP became a 
> real player, 

;It wasn't overnight.  As I recall, there was a growth curve charter 
from, I think, 1983, and what happened in the early 90s, fit the curve.  
It just happened to be the knee of the curve.

But there was a real commercial market for TCP/IP in the latter 1980s.  
Which means that the explosion around 1994, when the Internet went 
mass-market, took around 10 years to develop.


> Curiously, that collision of TCP with the installed base involved 
> TCP/IP V4.   TCP/IP V6 has come along and its been quite a few years 
> in transition. 

Oh. You think 30 years is quite a few?


> It seems that the momentum of the installed base of TCP/IP V4 has 
> blunted the adoption of TCP/IP V6.   Why?  What's different?

Almost no market demand.  And really, really poor roll-out of the 
capability.  Looked a lot like the OSI approach, actually.


d/


-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker at mastodon.social