Re: Metcalfes "imminent death of the internet" prediction

Noel Chiappa <jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu> Thu, 25 July 1996 16:58 UTC

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Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 12:44:17 -0400
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From: Noel Chiappa <jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-Id: <9607251644.AA07633@ginger.lcs.mit.edu>
To: bass@linux.silkroad.com, bilse@eu.net
Subject: Re: Metcalfes "imminent death of the internet" prediction
Cc: big-internet@munnari.oz.au, jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu
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    From: Tim Bass <bass@linux.silkroad.com>

    Let's don't worry about "what Dr. Metcalfe" says, how-bout-it?
    and think what is pragmatic and useful.

Too bad you didn't take you own advice and focus on the issue at hand, and not
attacking other peoples' technical abilities.

    I find it amusing that we need Dr. Metcalfe to formula opinions of the
    future of IP internetworking based on his substantial and significant
    contributions to IEEE 802. This is not to take away from the important
    contribution of Dr. Metcalfe ... Certainly a noted contribution to the
    engineering field with regard to networking does not make an omnipotent
    oracle for internetworking....

I'm puzzled about how to reconcile your assertions with the facts that i) Bob
Metcalfe was one of the chief designers of Xerox's PUP, which was the first
operational internetworking protocol, and thus has some useful experience in
this field, and ii) based on his work there, was involved in the early work on
what became TCP and IP (since at that point, they were not separate protocols).
Sure, I don't exactly bow down in his direction three times daily, but he's not
totally ignorant.

Now, can we stick to the issue at hand, please, and enough dumping on people
(lest the list of targets of similar behaviour get expanded, eh?)

	Noel