Another round on IPI and "attacks of open-sourcers" [ip]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Replies to IPI fending off "attacks of 
open-sourcers" [ip]
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 13:34:25 -0400
From: Tony Lauck <tlauck () madriver com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
CC: politech () politechbot com, wsimpson () greendragon com
References: <407CC785.4090602 () well com>

OSI failed for a number of reasons, but none of these involved billions
of dollars being spent by telephone companies or other organizations on
proprietary products.   OSI was an unsuccessful attempt to develop a set
of publicly available international standards which could be used by
anyone to build interoperable networks.

OSI failed because it overreached the technical possibilities of its
time, and attempted to do so within the straight-jacket of a
bureaucratic multi-level international standardization process.  In
addition to being slow, this process continually added complexity as a
method of political compromise.  TCP/IP succeeded because it avoided the
“second system syndrome” and because it had a small core of visionaries
and decision makers who were able to keep most unneeded complexity out
of the architecture until after it had achieved critical mass in the
marketplace.  Early U.S. Government funding was critical to creating and
sustaining this critical mass.

Those pondering transition of central control of the Internet to
international organizations ought to ponder the history of OSI.


Tony Lauck
Manager of Network Architecture at Digital Equipment Corp., 1978-1994



Declan McCullagh wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Politech] IPI successfully(?) fends off "attacks of 
> theopen-sourcers" [ip]
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:15:11 -0400
> From: William Allen Simpson <wsimpson () greendragon com>
> Organization: DayDreamer
> To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> References: <407C0961.3010805 () well com>
> In the marketplace, IP was a direct competitor to the private telephone
> companies' OSI -- that failed miserably despite billions of dollars in
> direct government investment, compared to a few measly millions in the
> ARPAnet and NSFnet (predecessors of the commercial Internet).
>
> Too broad a scope?  How about the Point-to-Point Protocol, developed in
> open cooperation among a large number of companies, institutions, and
> individual consultants through the IETF.  (As the Editor, I'm reasonably
> familiar with the specifics.)  How was that derivative?
>
> As an open source contributor, my PPP software proliferated into many
> projects, including proprietary products.  And that's what allowed the
> "common user" to dial-up the Internet, leading to an entire industry of
> widespread Internet Service Providers.  Mass market enough?



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