[TUHS] Signal/noise (Was: OSI stack (Was: Posters))

["Mantas Mikulėnas" <grawity@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 5:03 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     > From: Warner Losh
>
>     > a bunch of OSI/ISO network stack posters (thank goodness that didn't
>     > become standard, woof!)
>
> Why? The details have faded from my memory, but the lower 2 layers of the
> stack (CLNP and TP4) I don't recall as being too bad. (The real block to
> adoption was that people didn't want to get snarled up in the ISO standards
> process.)
>
> It at least managed (IIRC) to separate the concepts of, and naming for, 'node'
> and 'network interface' (which is more than IPv6 managed, apparently on the
> grounds that 'IPv4 did it that way', despite lengthy pleading that in light of
> increased understanding since IPv4 was done, they were separate concepts and
> deserved separate namespaces). Yes, the allocation of the names used by the
> path selection (I use that term because to too many people, 'routing' means
> 'packet forwarding') was a total dog's breakast (allocation by naming
> authority - the very definition of 'brain-damaged') but TCP/IP's was not any
> better, really.
>
> Yes, the whole session/presentation/application thing was ponderous and probably
> over-complicated, but that could have been ditched and simpler things run
> directly on TP4.
>
> {And apologies for the non-Unix content, but at least it's about computers,
> unlike all the postings about Jimmy Page's guitar; typical of the really poor
> S/N on this list.)
>

With apologies for the outburst:

When I first subscribed to tuhs several years ago (even though I don't
really belong in here; I'm younger than even Linux, much less any of
the Unixen), I *very much* enjoyed reading the various stories about
UUCP, about Sun, about X11, VMS, ARPAnet – often first-hand tales, no
less.

So I don't know what counts as 'signal' on this list versus 'noise',
but I'd much rather read a million posts about OSI, CLNP and other
networks – a history lesson and information that's been getting scarce
in general – than kill/mute yet another thread full of generic "boo M$
Windoze" drivel that I can already find on Reddit.

Thanks,

-- 
Mantas Mikulėnas