Questions from a User Perspective

[Sam Smith 8005 <[e-mail]>]

Hi.  I am a "senior citizen" of networking, involved in the early
(pre-religious) days of the GM MAP activity, but a veteran of many hopeful
network standards projects and of many frustrations with too many protocols
doing the same thing.  So, my (*) questions:

1.  If you were here in Detroit (MAP heartland), with these people deciding
to go full-bore with IP instead, what should be the message a network person
should give them?  Just use IP and don't worry about IPng until it's solved;
push for convergence of IP and ISO; push for one of the three approaches
under consideration; something else?  Does the use of CLNP by anything other
than addresses (RFC 1454 indicates not, I believe)?
(If not familiar with Manufacturing Automation Protocol, it uses OSI.)

2.  I've heard of an activity from GOSIP called Internet 2000.  Is this
request (a convergence plan, as I understand, between IP and ISO) basically
TUBA, or something else?  Since it seems to have arisen in the ISO world,
does this carry with it the kiss of death in the IP world?  Should users here
be concerned with Internet 2000?

3. Why are standard protocols not found among "neat" commercial products - in
particluar NOVELL?  Do they take short-cuts which can't be done in a
"standard"?  If so, how come over half the world's business can be done with
a protocol that is "less than standard"?  Couldn't standard protocols embrace
the same efficiencies attained by these commercial products?  (Question:  My
understanding is that internal checksums are often avoided in these
protocols.  If so, why can't they just be removed from the "standard"?  Could
one specific value of the checksum be used to mean "consider me good", and
permit checksums to be used where desired and set to this constant value when
not?)
3a.  If the IPng activity can do a really grand job, why would it not be
reasonable for commercial LAN packages to pick it up as the native protocol?
Is this wishful thinking?

4.  ATM is in every data comm article.  Is there anything about this
development which will impact IP's evolution?

(*) Please treat the questions above as "fuzzy" - I've referred to them as
"my" questions, but I think they reflect the concerns of many users not in
specifics but from the sense of "what are you guys doing anyway, and how is
it going to help me, and why can't we all talk the same language?"

I would greatly appreciate your feedback and guidance (I am in marketing, but
talk to a very large number of different LAN sites including large automotive
users, and I would like to suggest to them what to tune into, given that
their hopes for using OSI for everything have proven unrealistic).

Let me also take this opportunity to thank all of you in the Internet
community for doing a GREAT JOB!!  How I wish we had not received bad advice
early in the history of MAP regarding the use of TCP/IP - I think we could be
doing some interesting things with robotic communication by now!!

Regards,
Sam Smith
Chipcom Detroit Office
313-881-1260