[ih] OSI and alternate realiv

[Bob Purvy]

I said what I said. You are to conclude whatever you like.

On Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 5:04 PM John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:

> As I recall, Videotex was in the works in SGVIII when the Europeans
> hatched the agreement to ditch the CCITT Reference Model effort and CCITT
> would develop jointly with ISO, around 1980 or 82. (a big mistake as I have
> said). SGVIII basically laid out their header format and drew lines where
> they wanted layers.
>
> Of course, they didn’t want a Transport Protocol (or one they could
> ignore) because Videotex would be outside their monopoly and subject to
> competition, hence TP0. They also didn’t want anything to do with
> Presentation or the Application Layer.  They were the ones advocating for
> an API at Session Layer that when they got done with it had nothing to do
> with creating Sessions. Actually, giving SGVIII the Session Layer may have
> been part of the deal. It wasn’t a good idea but then I haven’t seen
> anything from ITU that was a good idea.
>
> WAP was especially hilarious. The original Videotex was killed by
> technology moving faster than they thought, which was basically what killed
> WAP. You would think they would learn. But then I have always said that ITU
> plans for a window of opportunity 15 minutes in the future.
>
> By your logic, am I to conclude that anything the PTTs backed was OSI?
>
> On Mar 16, 2024, at 19:45, Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Minitel had nothing to do with OSI.
>
> except both were heavily backed by one or more PTTs
>
> On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 4:22 PM John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> The PTTs were still stuck in the 20 year turnover of equipment and it was
>> changing lot faster.
>>
>> Minitel had nothing to do with OSI. It was already in the works when it
>> started. That was how the Session Layer got stolen and why there was TP0.
>>
>> What is even funnier was WAP was Videotex all over again and just as bad
>> the second time around.
>>
>> On Mar 16, 2024, at 18:17, Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Even when they actually *had* the future up and running, they spurned it:
>>
>> Minitel. It caught on, the French loved it, and the PTT still failed to
>> capitalize on it.
>>
>> With friends like PTTs, OSI didn't need any enemies.
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 10:25 AM John Day via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, the PTTs had no idea what was coming.  As late as the late 1980s, I
>>> had people telling me that the amount of data traffic would never exceed
>>> the amount voice traffic. (!!) You could only wonder what they were
>>> smoking!  ;-)
>>>
>>> Also, recent delving into the old papers makes it clear the degree to
>>> which the PTTs thwarted the development of comparable networks in Europe,
>>> e.g., EIN and EURONET.
>>>
>>> > On Mar 15, 2024, at 11:45, Daniele Bovio via Internet-history <
>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > David,
>>> > One of the major problems at the time was that the PTTs planned to
>>> charge
>>> > the X.25 traffic by volume, and this would have slowed down the
>>> development
>>> > of applications enormously, as nobody could have afforded to send
>>> images,
>>> > sound and videos over the network at an affordable price.
>>> > The other issue was that X.25 was limited to E1/DS1 (2Mb), and that
>>> was a
>>> > severe limitation.
>>> > Of course prices would have decreased for packet switched networks as
>>> well
>>> > after the monopolies fell for good at the end of the 90, and probably
>>> some
>>> > other X. would have been invented to overcome the E1 limitation of
>>> X.25, but
>>> > I believe it would have been an uphill road all the way.
>>> >
>>> > Cheers
>>> >
>>> > Daniele
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>> > From: Internet-history [mailto:
>>> internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org] On
>>> > Behalf Of David Sitman via Internet-history
>>> > Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 12:19 PM
>>> > To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>> > Subject: [ih] OSI and alternate reality
>>> >
>>> > 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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>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>