[9fans] on TCP vs IL

[Eric Grosse <ehg@research.bell-labs.com>]

yet another perspective from Bell Labs experience:

For the reasons Presotto mentioned regarding loss of back-to-back packets,
when at home and connecting to our IL-only fileserver, I use TCP to import
/ from a cpu server, thus using IL just across the machine room.  The local
TCP performance is good enough that I won't care if IL goes away someday.
On the other hand, there's no immediate push to get rid of it;  we support
IL in our new NAT code.

We have an initial implementation of IPv6 in Plan 9, thanks mainly to the
efforts of Lakshman Yagati.  It doesn't do IPsec yet---we prefer the easier
network administration of SSL/TLS, thank you---but does come with v4/v6
NAPT-PT, hence is viable to adopt even in otherwise IPv4-only networks.

These decisions are all based on the personal taste of the technical
people doing the work.  "smoky back rooms" are not our style.

Eric