smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) (05/26/90)
In article <9005211233.AA15946@gateway.mitre.org>, hal@GATEWAY.MITRE.ORG (Hal Feinstein) writes: > It has been suggested by some standards gurus that in the future > all LANs will be "standardized" to ISO/IEEE802 and that ethernet is a dead > (or possibly dying) protocol. I've never been a worshipper of ``standards'' that try to impose rather than describe. 802.3 would seem to me to meet that criterion, I'm afraid. At least in the TCP/IP world, I don't see that much movement to 802.3 (and away from Ethernet) simply because there's no compelling reason to. The current technology is here, it works, and it's compatible with (almost) everyone else. I'm sure folks will correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that HP was the only major vendor to try to use 802.3 encapsulation for IP over Ethernet, and that a few others (i.e., Cisco) would accomdate them, mostly for compatibility. Furthermore, as a result, it was hard to talk to some HP machines. The 802.3 format -- and in particular the 802.2 goo you're supposed to use -- makes sense if you're trying to do routing at that layer. In ``our'' world, there's a better, more flexible way to do routing, and that's at the IP layer. So why switch? The situation is different for other media. Token ring is inhabited by bluish PCs, and FDDI was decreed from the outset to use 802.2. For those, a simpler (or at least different) encapsulation has never had a chance to take hold. Thus, 802.2 will rule, even for IP. The higher levels? I'm *not* going to start another TCP/IP vs OSI flamefest here today... --Steve Bellovin P.S. I don't have a very good track record as a prophet; beware...
wunder@HPSDEL.SDE.HP.COM (Walter Underwood) (05/26/90)
If find it really amusing that the vendor independent standard, IEEE 802, is mostly used for proprietary protocols (HP, IBM, and Apple), while the proprietary standard, Ethernet (remember DEC, Intel, and Xerox?) carries all the multi-vendor protocols. Just goes to show that you can't judge a standard by its cover. wunder PS: Nearly all HP equipment can talk Ethernet and ARP these days. Only one OS, MPE/XL, is still 802-only, and Ethernet is scheduled for release on that, too.