[ih] "The Great Debate"

[Carl Malamud]

I believe that was 26th IETF, March 29 - April 2, 1993; Columbus, Ohio,
USA; Hosted by OARnet and The Ohio State University.

On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 11:35 AM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 4/26/2026 5:26 PM, Carl Malamud via Internet-history wrote:
> > In regards to Marshall and the OSI question, he gave a memorable speech
> at
> > an IETF plenary about how he had implemented OSI and he considered it to
> be
> > road kill in motion. He got a standing ovation from Jon Postel and
> others.
>
>
> Assuming we are thinking of the same event, this was Marshall's first
> time at an IETF and his presence and his presentation were carefully
> arranged.
>
> Marshall was working for me, at the time, and had just published his
> wonderful tome, The Open Book, about OSI.
>
> It included some discussion of standards processes, including reference
> to the IETF.  I'm not finding the relevant text that he made about
> standards processes but it included a summary assessment that these
> meetings were marked by "many fine lunches and dinners".
>
> He later reported that the OSI folk who read the book pretty much nodded
> in agreement with his characterization of the standards work.
>
> However many fine IETF folk took vigorous exception.  So there was some
> community anger with Marshall.
>
> His appearance at the Hawaii IETF was intended to mend the fence.  His
> presentation was stellar in form and content and was thoroughly successful.
>
> A bit of icing happened when I walked by a small group discussing what
> turned out to be final plans for the meeting t-shirt.  I injected the
> suggestion that at the bottom of the shirt's graphic, they should add
> "Many fine lunches and dinner" and they did.  And at the Plenary, they
> made a formal presentation of a shirt to Marshall.
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
>
> dhc at dcrocker.net
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