Subject: Re: An alternative to TCP (part 1)

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 16:12:52 -0500

> As I am sure you recall, the IETF held a BOF on "TCPng" some years
> ago.  It went over exactly the same ground tilled Mr. Gao.  The
> BOF's conclusion was that any gains would be marginal and would
> not justify the trauma of change.

I am fairly unconvinced in the arguments made by Mr. Gao.  However,
maybe a TCPng is the wrong way to look at things.  A better model,
it seems to me, is the one followed by SCTP.  In other words, let's
build a new transport that has semantics that are different from
TCP.  As long as it is safe (i.e., follows good congestion control),
why should we care how many of these protocols are defined?  After
we ensure the protocols are safe we can just let Darwinism take its
course.

allman

---
Mark Allman -- BBN/NASA GRC -- http://roland.grc.nasa.gov/~mallman/

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 17:42:58 -0500

From: Mark Allman <[email-masked]>
   Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2001 16:12:52 -0500

Does SCTP really have different semantics from TCP?  I thought it was
more of a superset.  

						- Ted

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From: "Bernard Aboba" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:18:23 -0800

>As long as it is safe (i.e., follows good congestion control),

Because a customer with sufficient $ would inevitably request the
Frobnitz Transport, since it garnered the IETF imprimateur and
the code base would eventually collapse under the weight of all this
"innovation". 

================================================================
Thought for the day:

"If farmers can be paid not to grow wheat, why can't IETF
WGs be paid not to develop protocols?"

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From: "Randall R. Stewart" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 06:31:58 -0600

> Does SCTP really have different semantics from TCP?  I thought it was
Ted:

It depends what you and Mark mean by semantics :) 

SCTP has some different concepts than TCP.
Most noteably streams and un-ordered service. Even just
the unit of delivery being different does pose some semantical 
differences (i.e. message versus byte stream). We have found
this quite a struggle has a group of us work on a sockets draft...

How do you map SCTP to the common sockets API... it is tricky and
has even caused some heated debate (right Kacheong?) :)

Regards

R

-- 

Randall R. Stewart
[email-masked] or [email-masked]
815-342-5222 (cell) 815-477-2127 (work)

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From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 12:11:17 -0500

> WGs be paid not to develop protocols?"

Because that would result in *more* protocols, not fewer, as many of us
would suddenly run off and start developing our own.  :-)

--
/=================================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own.   |
|Chief Scientist |================================================|
|eCal Corp.      |"Genius, Brain! But what if the dragon eats us?"|
[email-masked]|"That would alter our plans."                   |
\=================================================================/

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From: Ofer Inbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 16:45:36 -0500

> WGs be paid not to develop protocols?"

We can.  Just go work for a company that is willing to send you to
IETF on their time & money, and wants you to disrupt certain IETF
protocol work.  I'm sure many of us have witnessed this in action, and
we've probably missed some of the more subtle and skilled efforts.  It
most assuredly does happen.  My epiphany on this subject came during a
session of the HTML 3.0 working group, circa 1994.  I don't think it's
an accident that that WG effort did not produce a standard, although
of course I can't prove anything about anyone's intent at the time.

  --  Cos (Ofer Inbar)              --  [email-masked] [email-masked]
  --  Exodus Professional Services  --         http://www.exodus.net/
   "We all misuse the net for personal gain, one way or another."
       -- Larry Wall <[email-masked]>