[ih] OSI and alternate reality

[John Day]

Actually, that is quite interesting.

It is highly likely that at the time OSI TP4 would have adopted the DEC work on congestion (Raj Jain’s DEC Report) which was a vast improvement over what TCP adopted.

> On Mar 15, 2024, at 11:39, Andrew G. Malis via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Bob,
> 
>>> if the specs had been made freely available and with the same effort put
>>> into interoperability testing
> 
>> That is quite an IF. "If OSi hadn't been so bureaucratic", is what you're
> saying.
> 
> Yup. From a purely technical standpoint, without any of the
> bureaucratic barriers ISO IP and TP4 could have been the basis for the
> Internet. And we wouldn't be having our current issues with IPv4 to v6
> transition.
> 
> Cheers,
> Andy
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 11:21 AM Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> if the specs had been made freely available and with the same effort put
>> into interoperability testing
>> 
>> That is quite an IF. "If OSi hadn't been so bureaucratic", is what you're
>> saying.
>> 
>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 6:06 AM Andrew G. Malis via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Back in the day, while I was at BBN, I worked on the GOSIP specs in
>>> addition to my work on the ARPAnet and TCP/IP, so I have some familiarity
>>> with the topic. INMO, I can imagine an alternate reality where if TCP/IP
>>> hadn't taken off as it did for whatever reason, then OSI would have taken
>>> its place, but things would have just been delayed. There's no reason why,
>>> if the specs had been made freely available and with the same effort put
>>> into interoperability testing, congestion control, and such that happened
>>> for TCP/IP, that OSI IP and TP4 wouldn't eventually have worked as well.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Andy
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 6:19 AM David Sitman via Internet-history <
>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> In my talk at the EARN 40th Anniversary Conference in Athens in April I
>>>> would like to speculate a bit about what the world would be like today
>>> if
>>>> OSI had won the "Protocol Wars".
>>>> In 1986, it was a foregone conclusion that EARN would migrate to OSI in
>>> the
>>>> near future. However, when I began my international activity in 1991,
>>> OSI
>>>> was discussed as a promise that had gone largely unfulfilled and EARN
>>>> members were actively supporting TCP/IP networks. It seemed obvious why
>>>> TCP/IP had prevailed.
>>>> Would we have seen the same rapid and universal adoption of computer
>>>> networking with OSI? Could the Web have flourished? Would address space
>>> and
>>>> security issues be alleviated? Would "OSI on Everything" have become a
>>>> meme?
>>>> I would be very grateful for any thoughts about this.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> David Sitman
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>> 
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