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Re: Expired swIPe
Marcus J Ranum says:
> I have news for you, Steve -- they *ARE* standards.
> The question is "which community?" -- IPX and DOS aren't *internet*
> standards because they don't do the job for *us*.
>
> mjr - Software Darwinist.
Marcus has an excellent point. IPX became a standard -- a real
standard, count IPX machines sometime -- because no one bothered to
produce a decent IP stack with utilities for PCs and market it with
more than half an effort. Novell is NOT an engineering or marketing
powerhouse -- they filled a vacuum. (Of course, as Rob Pike said,
sometimes when you fill a vacuum it still sucks.)
The point I am making by mentioning IPX again is this: there is a
vacuum out there right now. Seventy committees are out there adding
security to this package and security to that. An IP level system once
appropriate higher level layers are added fills a huge vacuum. I'm not
pretending that swIPe is necessarily perfect -- its not. However, if
people want to see the best possible outcome the best thing to do is
constructively engage at this point rather than attempt to obstruct,
because obstructing won't mean anything, because even if you can stop
formal standardization you can never stop de facto standardization
except by providing something better early enough in the process.
Perry
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