[LINK] RFI: Packet

[Roger Clarke]

Highly valuable thanks linkers (both on-list and several off-list)!!

I now feel confident that I won't stuff it up when I get asked 
awkward questions.


David Lochrin <dlochrin at dot.net.au>:
>    The ISO model of Open Systems Interconnection led the way, and it 
>was disappointing to see so much of that framework was treated with 
>contempt by the IP community only to be reinvented later in bits & 
>pieces.

Yes, Pragmatic Engineers 10, Design Scientists 0

Both were right, in different frames of reference ...


>I used to monitor the Z39.50 work, and one could see the session 
>level, then the presentation level, and the application level being 
>painfully rediscovered as development proceeded.  And wouldn't a 
>proper FTP session level be nice?

I still use exactly the same slide in seminars now as I did in a 
lecture in 1983.  It came out of the first? second? edition of 
Tanenbaum, and had the ISO OSI stack on the left and the Internet 
Protocol Suite on the right.  The mapping between them was always 
wonky, but always conceptually valuable.

The diagram showed, and still shows, a gap in the upper levels on the 
right-hand side.  These days I can point to specific initiatives on 
the W3C site that are proposing to fill it in.  (Buzzword: 
'device-independence' aka 'now I wonder why WAP didn't work': 
http://www.w3c.org/2001/di/ ).

-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                 Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
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Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, U.N.S.W
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science, Australian National University