[ih] A revolution in Internet point-of-view - Was Re: Internet analyses (Was Re: IPv8...)

[Bob Purvy]

You are trying to square the circle: citing the non-democratic process for
its flaws, and being unable to point to any more democratic process with
better results. You seem to have missed the point here, for instance:

*"Standards is not science. Never has been, can’t be. "*

Standards, at least as the IETF functioned in the 80's and 90's, was based
on an engineering judgment of what was correct, would work, and had stood
up to real-world experience. That is how "science" works, exactly. That is
not "democratic" in any way, shape, or form.

On Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 5:04 PM John Day via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Choosing TCP.  Choosing SNMP over HEMS. Choosing IPng over IPv7, I am
> probably wrong but was the choice of domain-names broadly decided. There
> was a real fascination at the time with ‘host-names’, even though it has
> been known since the early 80s that ‘host-hames’ are irrelevant to creating
> end-to-end connections.
>
> As long as we are on the topic, why was IP Fragmentation never solved?
> PMTUD is a kludge, not a solution. (There is a solution). It is even richer
> that IPv6 has made PMTUD mandatory, even though it is a known DOS attack
> method, a real mark of a successful project.
>
> As for just plain conservative choices: TCP/IP, UDP, losing the Internet
> Layer, Sockets, TCP Congestion Control was a step back to CUTE+AIMD, IPv6,
> naming the interface in routers (apparently not understanding that when a
> packet is sent down a point-to-point line there is only one place for it to
> come out: the other end. Addresses on either end or not necessary. An
> identifier local to the router is required to distinguish them but not an
> address.) Most routers are connected by point-to-point lines. But that is
> okay, routers assigned an IP address to the Loopback module and route on
> that.
>
> John
>
> > On Apr 29, 2026, at 19:47, Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net> wrote:
> >
> > On 4/29/2026 4:43 PM, John Day wrote:
> >> When presented with potential solutions, the IETF was either directed
> to take a direction (usually a step backwards), or chose the more
> conservative decision (also a step backwards) and flawed direction.
> >
> >
> > John,
> >
> > Please provide specific examples of the IETF being given direction as to
> what choices to make.
> >
> > d/
> >
> > --
> > Dave Crocker
> >
> > dhc at dcrocker.net
> > bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
> > mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social
> > +1.408.329.0791
> >
> > Volunteer, Silicon Valley Chapter
> > Northern California Coastal Region
> > Information & Planning Coordinator
> > American Red Cross
> > dave.crocker2 at redcross.org
> >
>
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