From braden at ISI.EDU Wed Jan 2 09:40:44 2008 From: braden at ISI.EDU (Bob Braden) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:40:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [e2e] Modular/Pluggable TCP Congestion Control for FreeBSD Message-ID: <200801021740.JAA29666@gra.isi.edu> *> *> Hi all, *> *> We've been involved in a research project to implement and test an *> emerging TCP congestion control algorithm under FreeBSD. As a part of *> this, we've put together a patch for FreeBSD 7.0-BETA4 that modularises *> the congestion control code in the TCP stack. It allows for new *> congestion control algorithms to be developed as loadable kernel modules. *> Research project? Uhhh, this sounds like an implementation of Hari Balakrishnan's Congestion Manager (ACM SIGCOMM 1999), but perhaps I am missing something. Long, long ago I heard Herb Simon quip that, while most scientists stand on each other's shoulders, Computer Scientists stand on each other's toes. Bob Braden From dpreed at reed.com Wed Jan 2 19:15:25 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:15:25 -0500 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms Message-ID: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> A student just mentioned to me that AODV and OLSR routing algorithms are patented. I have to say I was surprised. Anyone know by whom, and what the licensing requirements are? Are there also patents on any end-to-end protocols described by RFCs? From touch at ISI.EDU Wed Jan 2 21:45:04 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:45:04 -0800 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> Message-ID: <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> David P. Reed wrote: > A student just mentioned to me that AODV and OLSR routing algorithms are > patented. I have to say I was surprised. Anyone know by whom, and > what the licensing requirements are? > > Are there also patents on any end-to-end protocols described by RFCs? See: https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/ OSPF, in particular, has IBM IPR claims. Many are of the form "don't enforce against us, and you can use this one for free"; something of that general flexibility is typically the most restrictive accepted for standards-track protocols. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080102/5ff4979a/signature.bin From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Wed Jan 2 22:53:30 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 06:53:30 +0000 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> Message-ID: a letter in this month's CACM reminds us that the Church-Turing Theorem states that algorithms and mathematics are the same - math is unpatentable so ... time to trash algorithm patents esp. where they are used in clear violation even of the original (at least US) intent of patent law....edison will be turning in his grave... the ietf has (had) the right model.. In missive <477C7660.8020406 at isi.edu>, Joe Touch typed: >>This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) >>--------------enig1A3BBBC866E744BC19654C61 >>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 >>Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >> >> >> >>David P. Reed wrote: >>> A student just mentioned to me that AODV and OLSR routing algorithms ar= >>e >>> patented. I have to say I was surprised. Anyone know by whom, and >>> what the licensing requirements are? >>>=20 >>> Are there also patents on any end-to-end protocols described by RFCs? >> >>See: https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/ >> >>OSPF, in particular, has IBM IPR claims. Many are of the form "don't >>enforce against us, and you can use this one for free"; something of >>that general flexibility is typically the most restrictive accepted for >>standards-track protocols. >> >>Joe >> >> >>--------------enig1A3BBBC866E744BC19654C61 >>Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" >>Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature >>Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" >> >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >>Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) >>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >> >>iD8DBQFHfHZsE5f5cImnZrsRAtvAAJ40kmzYfBSly/WuBGtKY7A/SjrPfwCgly99 >>gO04SV3gJ+tRnkS7lEz4XM8= >>=blSw >>-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >> >>--------------enig1A3BBBC866E744BC19654C61-- cheers jon From detlef.bosau at web.de Thu Jan 3 07:39:38 2008 From: detlef.bosau at web.de (Detlef Bosau) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:39:38 +0100 Subject: [e2e] Modular/Pluggable TCP Congestion Control for FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <200801021740.JAA29666@gra.isi.edu> References: <200801021740.JAA29666@gra.isi.edu> Message-ID: <477D01BA.3000706@web.de> Bob Braden wrote: > Long, long ago I heard Herb Simon quip that, while most scientists > stand on each other's shoulders, Computer Scientists stand on each > other's toes. > Hm. IIRC, Wes Eddy accredited this to Hamming ;-) > Bob Braden > > -- Detlef Bosau Mail: detlef.bosau at web.de Galileistrasse 30 Web: http://www.detlef-bosau.de 70565 Stuttgart Skype: detlef.bosau Mobile: +49 172 681 9937 From bms at incunabulum.net Thu Jan 3 07:50:03 2008 From: bms at incunabulum.net (Bruce M Simpson) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:50:03 +0000 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477D042B.30707@incunabulum.net> Joe Touch wrote: > David P. Reed wrote: > >> A student just mentioned to me that AODV and OLSR routing algorithms are >> patented. I have to say I was surprised. Anyone know by whom, and >> what the licensing requirements are? >> > See: https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/ > I see no matches for RFC 3626 (OLSR), and am unaware of any patent claims in this area. David, can your student provide any more information about these IPR claims? There's a lot of junk (patents|laws|culture|food) out there these days. A brief search reveals this, which sounds like a junk patent: http://www.freshpatents.com/Network-architecture-dt20071213ptan20070286097.php There are a number of efforts related to OLSR which make the "don't hit us, and we won't hit you" approach explicit in their wording, but they are not OLSR itself, merely extensions. Perhaps someone should start a social networking site, whereby organisations which file embarassingly general patents, such as this one, are named and shamed, and generally poked fun at by the rest of the human race. Even more embarassingly, the implementation of such a social networking site would probably violate said 'patent'. Love and kisses BMS From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 11:22:38 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:22:38 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Modular/Pluggable TCP Congestion Control for FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <477D01BA.3000706@web.de> References: <200801021740.JAA29666@gra.isi.edu> <477D01BA.3000706@web.de> Message-ID: <477D35FE.3090906@isi.edu> Detlef Bosau wrote: > Bob Braden wrote: >> Long, long ago I heard Herb Simon quip that, while most scientists >> stand on each other's shoulders, Computer Scientists stand on each >> other's toes. >> > > Hm. IIRC, Wes Eddy accredited this to Hamming ;-) FWIW: "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" is attributed to Isaac Newton from his use in a letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675, but ts origin goes back another 400 years or so to a philosopher named Bernard of Chartres around 1130: "We are like dwarfs standing [or sitting] upon the shoulders of giants, and so able to see more and see farther than the ancients." http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0162b.shtml Mathematicians were brought into the comparison by Gauss: "Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders." Richard Hamming said the following, at least by most sources: "Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes." A number of sources attribute a similar quote to Brian Reid: "In computer science, we stand on each other's feet." The version comparing scientists and computer scientists above hasn't (yet) been attributed to anyone... Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/13f73ff0/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 13:38:23 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:38:23 -0800 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> Jon Crowcroft wrote: > a letter in this month's CACM reminds us that the Church-Turing Theorem > states that algorithms and mathematics are the same - math is unpatentable > so ... FWIW, math isn't patentable itself, but is potentially patentable when applied to a real problem (e.g., general path calculation wouldn't be, but IP packet routing would even if it's basically just an application of general path calculation). See, e.g.,: http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/862bd9a4/signature.bin From dpreed at reed.com Thu Jan 3 14:26:17 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:26:17 -0500 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> One should be careful that just because we speak English on this list, we don't all live in England. US patent law is different from that in other jurisdictions. We aren't talking about "software patents" when we refer to processes that involve sending messages between devices - i.e. network protocols - by the way. The BGP spec is not code for a computer, nor is AODV. In fact, BGP Algorithm patents are not strictly identical to software patents. An algorithm is a process. A software program is a recipe that causes a device to perform a process, but it also typically has "free variables" so it is a recipe that is not terribly specific. At some degree of non-specificity it almost certainly doesn't specify anything narrow enough to be patentable subject matter. Of course, all these nouns that I am forced to use to describe abstractions create the illusion that descriptions are equivalent to the things described. /*"Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images) or, if you prefer the American Presidentialism: "it all depends on what is is" (Clinton). */ Joe Touch wrote: > Jon Crowcroft wrote: > >> a letter in this month's CACM reminds us that the Church-Turing Theorem >> states that algorithms and mathematics are the same - math is unpatentable >> so ... >> > > FWIW, math isn't patentable itself, but is potentially patentable when > applied to a real problem (e.g., general path calculation wouldn't be, > but IP packet routing would even if it's basically just an application > of general path calculation). > > See, e.g.,: > http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html > > Joe > > From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 14:47:52 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:47:52 -0800 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> Message-ID: <477D6618.8030409@isi.edu> David P. Reed wrote: ...> We aren't talking about "software patents" when we refer to processes > that involve sending messages between devices - i.e. network > protocols - by the way. The BGP spec is not code for a computer, nor > is AODV. In fact, BGP Algorithm patents are not strictly identical to > software patents. An algorithm is a process. Algorithms, in the abstract sense, are closer to mathematical equations, which (AFAICT, not being a lawyer) remain non-patentable in the US. Implementations of those algorithms in distributed systems are closer to processes, which is partly why the US patent law changed in this area (as the URL below notes). "Processes", as used in patents, refer to a sequence of steps that results in a physical artifact: A process or method that consists of an act, operation, or step or series thereof performed upon a specified subject matter to produce a physical result. E.g., the process for manufacturing wine from grapes or the process for making paper clips from wire. I'm not familiar with any pure algorithm patent. It's not the spec of BGP that would be patentable, AFAICT, but rather any rendering of the algorithm for the purposes of forwarding packets between administrative domains (presuming BGP were patented, as an example). Joe >> Joe Touch wrote: >> Jon Crowcroft wrote: >> >>> a letter in this month's CACM reminds us that the Church-Turing Theorem >>> states that algorithms and mathematics are the same - math is >>> unpatentable >>> so ... >>> >> >> FWIW, math isn't patentable itself, but is potentially patentable when >> applied to a real problem (e.g., general path calculation wouldn't be, >> but IP packet routing would even if it's basically just an application >> of general path calculation). >> >> See, e.g.,: >> http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html >> >> Joe >> >> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/102a2220/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 15:05:34 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:05:34 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> Message-ID: <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> Detlef Bosau wrote: > Lynne Jolitz wrote: ... >> Many people on the academic side still use forms of BSD, and perhaps >> prefer the old way of doing things. I use BSD myself. However, Linux >> is clearly the market leader and cooperating with how they handle >> their development model is a key consideration for promulgating new >> work in networking and operating systems. > > That?s simply not the point. > > I think, Lloyd Wood made the point precisely: > > "Academics are rewarded by writing papers. They are not rewarded by > staying current with the current codebase of the linux kernel/ns." Nor are they rewarded for paying the penalty of the goofiness of the Linux community in deploying experimental protocols as default. This has come up at a number of IETF meetings, in particular, regarding CUBIC which is currently the default in Linux despite being an Internet Draft intended as experimental in the IETF. Academics like stability, and they like things that follow standards. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/e90c4015/signature.bin From ian.mcdonald at jandi.co.nz Thu Jan 3 15:50:33 2008 From: ian.mcdonald at jandi.co.nz (Ian McDonald) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 12:50:33 +1300 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> Message-ID: <5640c7e00801031550m3a49f988hde91950dce891c64@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2008 12:05 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > > > I think, Lloyd Wood made the point precisely: > > > > "Academics are rewarded by writing papers. They are not rewarded by > > staying current with the current codebase of the linux kernel/ns." > > Nor are they rewarded for paying the penalty of the goofiness of the > Linux community in deploying experimental protocols as default. This has > come up at a number of IETF meetings, in particular, regarding CUBIC > which is currently the default in Linux despite being an Internet Draft > intended as experimental in the IETF. > > Academics like stability, and they like things that follow standards. > > Joe > > I think academics do themselves a dis-service when they hide behind their simulators and don't go out and try and use software. It's often interesting to compare what happens in the simulator to the "real world". What use is the research without applying it? There is a real shortage of academics in the Linux community (and probably the BSD community too) - when I was involved I only saw two or three being active out of many 100s/1000s of network researchers there must be. I've personally been involved in the debates in the Linux community around BIC, Cubic, ABC, RTO minimums etc and have been able to influence some change. Where academics have gotten involved they have usually (but not always) been listened to. I know some academics have shied away from joining in the debates because they get "flamed". I'd say two things about this - it is getting less flamey and it's also less harsh than many peer reviews I've had on my papers! If you want to make a difference here, get involved. Regards, Ian -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 15:59:11 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:59:11 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <5640c7e00801031550m3a49f988hde91950dce891c64@mail.gmail.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801031550m3a49f988hde91950dce891c64@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <477D76CF.8000402@isi.edu> Ian McDonald wrote: > On Jan 4, 2008 12:05 PM, Joe Touch wrote: >>> I think, Lloyd Wood made the point precisely: >>> >>> "Academics are rewarded by writing papers. They are not rewarded by >>> staying current with the current codebase of the linux kernel/ns." >> Nor are they rewarded for paying the penalty of the goofiness of the >> Linux community in deploying experimental protocols as default. This has >> come up at a number of IETF meetings, in particular, regarding CUBIC >> which is currently the default in Linux despite being an Internet Draft >> intended as experimental in the IETF. >> >> Academics like stability, and they like things that follow standards. >> >> Joe > > > I think academics do themselves a dis-service when they hide behind > their simulators and don't go out and try and use software. Not all "non-Linux" research is done in simulators. BSD, e.g., *is* software. FreeBSD supported multilevel IP tunnels years before Linux, which is why I used it for overlay research for the past decade. And BSD is in Apple OS/X. ... > If you want to make a difference here, get involved. I have - in FreeBSD, FWIW. We've contributed a number of patches to enable multilayer tunneling and support IPsec interactions with tunnels to KAME and BSD. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/da6efabf/signature.bin From L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk Thu Jan 3 17:53:24 2008 From: L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk (L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 01:53:24 -0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net><45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> Message-ID: <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> Didn't we have this same conversation last January? How is e.g. Microsoft any different with compound TCP being only an internet-draft: http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-sridharan-tcpm-ctcp-01.txt yet deployed widely in Vista? Doing the whole FreeBSD-sneering-at-Linux thing is, well, old. There are many academics using Linux, not least because it's not picky about what it runs on. You're ignoring the goofy elephant in the room. Linux deploying experimental protocols means it's less work for academics to tweak newly-designed protocols and propose and test variants, ergo academics like it. Stability doesn't come into it, if academic code is anything to go by. An academic views code as stable if it hasn't crashed on him recently, or if it gives usable results before (or even while) crashing. It's all about the results. Academics like results, and they like things that get them results easily. And where's the research value and funding in working on an already existing standard? L. Detlef Bosau wrote: > Lynne Jolitz wrote: ... >> Many people on the academic side still use forms of BSD, and perhaps >> prefer the old way of doing things. I use BSD myself. However, Linux >> is clearly the market leader and cooperating with how they handle >> their development model is a key consideration for promulgating new >> work in networking and operating systems. > > That?s simply not the point. > > I think, Lloyd Wood made the point precisely: > > "Academics are rewarded by writing papers. They are not rewarded by > staying current with the current codebase of the linux kernel/ns." Nor are they rewarded for paying the penalty of the goofiness of the Linux community in deploying experimental protocols as default. This has come up at a number of IETF meetings, in particular, regarding CUBIC which is currently the default in Linux despite being an Internet Draft intended as experimental in the IETF. Academics like stability, and they like things that follow standards. Joe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/05f4dc13/attachment.html From dpreed at reed.com Thu Jan 3 19:02:41 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:02:41 -0500 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net><45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> Message-ID: <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> This list, is, after all, associated with the IRTF, not the IETF. I must admit that I may be seen as biased, since I tend to run the "git" version of the Linux mainstream kernel, so I live at the bleeding edge, and I have contributed small fixes to the kernel development process (one being queued for 2.6.25 as we speak). It seems extremely healthy for Linux (as the only game in town for truly planet-scale open research collaboration at the OS level) to be allowing its users to participate in shaking out issues in the evolving Internet. If only Microsoft would allow experimenters planet-wide to experiment with its full OS source code so that students can learn... naah. Wouldn't want to hurt BillG's ego by confronting the idea that today's kids include some smarter than he is/was... better to act like IBM mainframers did when he was a kid. L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk wrote: > > Didn't we have this same conversation last January? > > How is e.g. Microsoft any different with compound TCP being only an > internet-draft: > http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-sridharan-tcpm-ctcp-01.txt > yet deployed widely in Vista? > > Doing the whole FreeBSD-sneering-at-Linux thing is, well, old. There > are many academics using Linux, not least because it's not picky about > what it runs on. You're ignoring the goofy elephant in the room. > > Linux deploying experimental protocols means it's less work for > academics to tweak newly-designed protocols and propose and test > variants, ergo academics like it. > > Stability doesn't come into it, if academic code is anything to go by. > An academic views code as stable if it hasn't crashed on him recently, > or if it gives usable results before (or even while) crashing. It's > all about > the results. Academics like results, and they like things that get them > results easily. > > And where's the research value and funding in working on an > already existing standard? > > L. > > Detlef Bosau wrote: > > Lynne Jolitz wrote: > ... > >> Many people on the academic side still use forms of BSD, and perhaps > >> prefer the old way of doing things. I use BSD myself. However, Linux > >> is clearly the market leader and cooperating with how they handle > >> their development model is a key consideration for promulgating new > >> work in networking and operating systems. > > > > That?s simply not the point. > > > > I think, Lloyd Wood made the point precisely: > > > > "Academics are rewarded by writing papers. They are not rewarded by > > staying current with the current codebase of the linux kernel/ns." > > Nor are they rewarded for paying the penalty of the goofiness of the > Linux community in deploying experimental protocols as default. This has > come up at a number of IETF meetings, in particular, regarding CUBIC > which is currently the default in Linux despite being an Internet Draft > intended as experimental in the IETF. > > Academics like stability, and they like things that follow standards. > > Joe > > From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 21:36:26 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:36:26 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net><45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> Message-ID: <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> David P. Reed wrote: > This list, is, after all, associated with the IRTF, not the IETF. I > must admit that I may be seen as biased, since I tend to run the "git" > version of the Linux mainstream kernel, so I live at the bleeding edge, > and I have contributed small fixes to the kernel development process > (one being queued for 2.6.25 as we speak). > > It seems extremely healthy for Linux (as the only game in town for truly > planet-scale open research collaboration at the OS level) to be allowing > its users to participate in shaking out issues in the evolving Internet. It's great that Linux has variants of TCP that users can enable. It's irresponsible and/or sloppy to enable those experiments by default. > If only Microsoft would allow experimenters planet-wide to experiment > with its full OS source code so that students can learn... naah. I'm not sure I'd want my students have that kind of a setback; going back a decade or so in capability isn't an enabling experience. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/d3b78b2f/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Thu Jan 3 21:37:10 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:37:10 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net><45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> Message-ID: <477DC606.1020203@isi.edu> L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk wrote: > Didn't we have this same conversation last January? > > How is e.g. Microsoft any different with compound TCP being only an > internet-draft: > http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-sridharan-tcpm-ctcp-01.txt > yet deployed widely in Vista? It isn't; we were talking about Linux. I'll sneer at Windows too, if you like, on this point. > Doing the whole FreeBSD-sneering-at-Linux thing is, well, old. There > are many academics using Linux, not least because it's not picky about > what it runs on. You're ignoring the goofy elephant in the room. Some academics do use Linux. Some use BSD. You're certainly right that - depending on what you want as your base - Linux can be more enabling. If you want support for arbitrary device, Linux wins, e.g.. If I want a book that walks students through the networking source code, BSD wins, e.g. For networking, I admit I am perplexed. On the one hand, we have a system built by academics basically for research use. On the other, we have a system designed most specifically not to look like BSD. I'm not sure 'not being BSD' is the best core design criteria. However, yes, that's an academic discussion. > Stability doesn't come into it, if academic code is anything to go by. > An academic views code as stable if it hasn't crashed on him recently, > or if it gives usable results before (or even while) crashing. It's all > about > the results. Academics like results, and they like things that get them > results easily. Yes, and as I noted, BSD crashes never basically assumed file system corruption like Linux did. Academics - who crash systems a lot in the process of developing code - don't like systems that require complete reinstalls inside the debug cycle either. > And where's the research value and funding in working on an > already existing standard? There is research in working on new variants in a stable base; having Linux - or Windows - add a variable to an experiment doesn't help. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080103/7b8f0393/signature.bin From ian.mcdonald at jandi.co.nz Thu Jan 3 22:20:33 2008 From: ian.mcdonald at jandi.co.nz (Ian McDonald) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 19:20:33 +1300 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> Message-ID: <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2008 6:36 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > It's great that Linux has variants of TCP that users can enable. It's > irresponsible and/or sloppy to enable those experiments by default. > If that is your opinion then go argue your case on netdev at vger.kernel.org. I don't necessarily disagree but this is the area to debate it, not on this list (if you want change that is). I'm not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. Ian -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Thu Jan 3 23:01:27 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:01:27 +0000 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> Message-ID: it is a goal of much recent work (see Sewell et al in sigcomm 05 "Rigorous specification and conformance testing techniques for network protocols, as applied to TCP, UDP, and sockets" and various papers by Griffin and Sobrinho on Metarouting) to render protocols merely algorithmic specifications that are fed into engines that run them shame on us as computer scientists that we dont use such techniques on a daily basis for well-found engineering instead of the handwaving that passes for communications work still in the 21st century it is a technical AND ethical goal to make it so and should be a duty on all of us to get the law to recognize it In missive <477D6109.9020701 at reed.com>, "David P. Reed" typed: >>One should be careful that just because we speak English on this list, >>we don't all live in England. US patent law is different from that in >>other jurisdictions. >> >>We aren't talking about "software patents" when we refer to processes >>that involve sending messages between devices - i.e. network protocols - >>by the way. The BGP spec is not code for a computer, nor is AODV. In >>fact, BGP >> >>Algorithm patents are not strictly identical to software patents. An >>algorithm is a process. A software program is a recipe that causes a >>device to perform a process, but it also typically has "free variables" >>so it is a recipe that is not terribly specific. At some degree of >>non-specificity it almost certainly doesn't specify anything narrow >>enough to be patentable subject matter. >> >>Of course, all these nouns that I am forced to use to describe >>abstractions create the illusion that descriptions are equivalent to the >>things described. >> >>/*"Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (see >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images) >> >>or, if you prefer the American Presidentialism: "it all depends on what >>is is" (Clinton). >>*/ >> >> >>Joe Touch wrote: >>> Jon Crowcroft wrote: >>> >>>> a letter in this month's CACM reminds us that the Church-Turing Theorem >>>> states that algorithms and mathematics are the same - math is unpatentable >>>> so ... >>>> >>> >>> FWIW, math isn't patentable itself, but is potentially patentable when >>> applied to a real problem (e.g., general path calculation wouldn't be, >>> but IP packet routing would even if it's basically just an application >>> of general path calculation). >>> >>> See, e.g.,: >>> http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html >>> >>> Joe >>> >>> cheers jon From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 05:26:38 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:26:38 -0500 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <477E340E.9050505@reed.com> To Ian's point: there are two highly separated layers of decision making in Linux. To wit: 1)the kernel developers (in which I include the net developers, though the groups are somewhat distinct), and 2) the distro makers. The distro makers are free to enable or disable many of the options in the kernel they choose to ship - including TCP experiments as part of a broad "permanent beta program" that certain distros aspire to be. Different distros may or may not do this. I happen to have settled on Fedora as my "base distro". I like it's risk-taking, relatively bleeding-edge approach of including the community in testing out new things (it's been called the "beta" for RedHat). But you can also use RedHat Enterprise Linux (or the free version of that or Suse if you want conservative, carefully thought through non-experimental distributions. The place to argue about what is distributed to the broad user groups who don't want to be part of the experimental linux community is with the distro builders in one or more of the distros that focus on "the general public". Ubuntu perhaps should have a different philosophy about releasing experimental TCP features in its kernels than does Fedora. Ian McDonald wrote: > On Jan 4, 2008 6:36 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > >> It's great that Linux has variants of TCP that users can enable. It's >> irresponsible and/or sloppy to enable those experiments by default. >> >> > If that is your opinion then go argue your case on > netdev at vger.kernel.org. I don't necessarily disagree but this is the > area to debate it, not on this list (if you want change that is). I'm > not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People > there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. > > Ian > From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 05:42:39 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:42:39 -0500 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> Message-ID: <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> Jon Crowcroft wrote: > it is a goal of much recent work (see Sewell et al in sigcomm 05 > "Rigorous specification and conformance testing techniques for network protocols, > as applied to TCP, UDP, and sockets" > and various papers > by Griffin and Sobrinho on Metarouting) > to render protocols merely > algorithmic specifications that are fed into engines that run them > > shame on us as computer scientists that > we dont use such techniques on a daily basis for > well-found engineering instead of the handwaving that passes > for communications work still in the 21st century > > it is a technical AND ethical goal to make it so > and should be a duty on all of us to get the law to recognize it > > That's a plausible point of view. I heartily disagree, however. In 1974 or so, our research group (Saltzer, Clark, Reed, Liskov, Svobodova, as I recall) decided that a *crucial* aspect of distributed systems was that they exhibited "autonomy", which implies a serious notion of loose coupling, flexibility, revisability, etc. That set of attributes are crucial, leaving them out for the sake of formal methods is just another Procrustean bed, where they are the Feet. *Protocols* are techniques for achieving communications in the face of uncertainty about who is on the other side of the network. Not just an unreliable network in the middle, but an uncertainty in a very fundamental sense about what is on the other side. In "distributed systems" that must function in the real world, a core and *essential* concept is that one must specify parts of the system to work "right" EVEN IF THE DEFINITION OF RIGHT CANNOT BE WELL-DEFINED MATHEMATICALLY. To someone who speaks English as a protocol, this is obvious. I can try to convince you, for example, by the words above that I am right. And I am using English correctly, and this can be verified. But it has nothing to do whatsoever with being able to prove that you *will* agree with me at the end of the conversation. Maybe it will take more conversations, maybe not. But a protocol is not an algorithm executed by a complete set of formal machines, though some protocols (a small subset might be in that category). That is a sad, little boring and utlimately trivial subset of the "protocols" of the world. Maybe it makes small-minded mathematicians happy because they can close off a "formal system" and prove theorems, as if proving theorems is the desired endpoint of system design. But the ability to prove theorems is not the test of a *useful* protocol set - neither of engineering value, nor of human value. The ability to communicate (which cannot be formalized in any way I know) is the correct test. The Internet is one example of a system that succeeds in communicating, and there really was NOT a need to define a formal specification of a collection of machines to achieve that result. From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Fri Jan 4 05:51:12 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:51:12 +0000 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> Message-ID: why do you think a loose coupled system cannot be described mathematically? clearly I can describe the code at each end of a protocol, and the channel, and at least derive theorems about how these combine. just because i dont over determine thigns doesn't mean that there isnt a precise mathematical description - it just means that there are non deterministic (external) events....thats been smething that process algebras have addressed since CCS, CSP, Lotos etc etc...even though those systems were somewhat unwieldy many processor designs today are specified - but a ot of asynch circuit design has to be underdetermined....that doesnt mean it isnt amenable to math (code/algorithmic) description. you're starting to sound like Richard Dawkin's who seems to think that human consciousness is not amanable to emulation by machine because of quantum mechaninics....an even great heresy description doesn't mean 100% prediction...:) In missive <477E37CF.5010707 at reed.com>, "David P. Reed" typed: >>Jon Crowcroft wrote: >>> it is a goal of much recent work (see Sewell et al in sigcomm 05 >>> "Rigorous specification and conformance testing techniques for network protocols, >>> as applied to TCP, UDP, and sockets" >>> and various papers >>> by Griffin and Sobrinho on Metarouting) >>> to render protocols merely >>> algorithmic specifications that are fed into engines that run them >>> >>> shame on us as computer scientists that >>> we dont use such techniques on a daily basis for >>> well-found engineering instead of the handwaving that passes >>> for communications work still in the 21st century >>> >>> it is a technical AND ethical goal to make it so >>> and should be a duty on all of us to get the law to recognize it >>> >>> >>That's a plausible point of view. I heartily disagree, however. In >>1974 or so, our research group (Saltzer, Clark, Reed, Liskov, Svobodova, >>as I recall) decided that a *crucial* aspect of distributed systems was >>that they exhibited "autonomy", which implies a serious notion of loose >>coupling, flexibility, revisability, etc. That set of attributes are >>crucial, leaving them out for the sake of formal methods is just another >>Procrustean bed, where they are the Feet. >> >>*Protocols* are techniques for achieving communications in the face of >>uncertainty about who is on the other side of the network. Not just an >>unreliable network in the middle, but an uncertainty in a very >>fundamental sense about what is on the other side. >> >>In "distributed systems" that must function in the real world, a core >>and *essential* concept is that one must specify parts of the system to >>work "right" EVEN IF THE DEFINITION OF RIGHT CANNOT BE WELL-DEFINED >>MATHEMATICALLY. >> >>To someone who speaks English as a protocol, this is obvious. I can >>try to convince you, for example, by the words above that I am right. >>And I am using English correctly, and this can be verified. But it has >>nothing to do whatsoever with being able to prove that you *will* agree >>with me at the end of the conversation. Maybe it will take more conversations, maybe not. >> >>But a protocol is not an algorithm executed by a complete set of formal >>machines, though some protocols (a small subset might be in that >>category). That is a sad, little boring and utlimately trivial subset >>of the "protocols" of the world. Maybe it makes small-minded >>mathematicians happy because they can close off a "formal system" and >>prove theorems, as if proving theorems is the desired endpoint of system >>design. But the ability to prove theorems is not the test of a >>*useful* protocol set - neither of engineering value, nor of human >>value. The ability to communicate (which cannot be formalized in any >>way I know) is the correct test. The Internet is one example of a >>system that succeeds in communicating, and there really was NOT a need >>to define a formal specification of a collection of machines to achieve >>that result. >> >> cheers jon From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 07:53:27 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:53:27 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> Ian McDonald wrote: > On Jan 4, 2008 6:36 PM, Joe Touch wrote: >> It's great that Linux has variants of TCP that users can enable. It's >> irresponsible and/or sloppy to enable those experiments by default. >> > If that is your opinion then go argue your case on > netdev at vger.kernel.org. There are others in the IETF preparing lists of such misuse of experimental protocols and who have indicate they are already doing so, FWIW. > I don't necessarily disagree but this is the > area to debate it, not on this list (if you want change that is). It was raised on this list for other reasons, not to effect change. > I'm > not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People > there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. FWIW, if they DO listen to good points, why isn't the mere fact that these protocols are Experimental not a sufficient point? If they're going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/a3ecef29/signature.bin From L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk Fri Jan 4 09:12:59 2008 From: L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk (Lloyd Wood) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:12:59 +0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> Message-ID: <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> At Friday 04/01/2008 07:53 -0800, Joe Touch wrote: >> I'm >> not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People >> there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. > >FWIW, if they DO listen to good points, why isn't the mere fact that >these protocols are Experimental not a sufficient point? because linux development, like all development, is itself experimental in nature. The point about the difference between development and distribution has been made previously by Reed. (The problem of distinguishing between development and distribution only really occurs once you have a large userbase of non-developers. And doesn't the name Request For Comments itself sound experimental?) >If they're >going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training >IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. Do you have examples of 'bailing out' to share? L. > It was raised on this list for other reasons, not to effect change From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 09:16:40 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:16:40 -0500 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> Message-ID: <477E69F8.5050106@reed.com> Jon Crowcroft wrote: > why do you think a loose coupled system cannot be described > mathematically? Perhaps it is an article of faith on my part. Dawkins claims that he takes nothing on faith - rejecting the concept of faith as non-mathematical, and therefore not scientifically real. I reject his views as self-contradictory, though I find them interesting and worthy of study. Of course there are many mathematicians (I think a minority, but a substantial one) who don't buy into Hilbert's pure formalism program, and further don't believe that the world must be formalizable in all aspects. I believe I am (to the extent I claim to be a mathematician) in that group. Bayesians tend to be in that group - you can be a Bayesian without expecting that there is a "ground truth" of ideals in the sense that Plato and his followers wished for. One can, of course, *define* a meaning for the term "loose coupling" as a mathematical property either as an axiom or by reduction to axiomatic elements of some formal system. But that definition, I personally suspect, will not be complete, in the sense of properly capturing the notion of a protocol of the sort that English, or Linear-B, or any other human mode of communication has. For example, we speak English and expect a wide variety of "systems" to change state in reasonably non-surprising ways that match our intention. > clearly I can describe the code at each end of a > protocol, and the channel, and at least derive theorems about how > these combine. just because i dont over determine thigns doesn't mean > that there isnt a precise mathematical description - it just means > that there are non deterministic (external) events....thats been > smething that process algebras have addressed since CCS, CSP, Lotos > etc etc...even though those systems were somewhat unwieldy > Process algebras start with assertions and definitions. That makes them useful tools, but it does not make them true. > many processor designs today are specified - but a ot of asynch > circuit design has to be underdetermined....that doesnt mean it isnt > amenable to math (code/algorithmic) description. > > you're starting to sound like Richard Dawkin's who seems to think that > human consciousness is not amanable to emulation by machine because > of quantum mechaninics....an even great heresy > > description doesn't mean 100% prediction...:) > > In missive <477E37CF.5010707 at reed.com>, "David P. Reed" typed: > > >>Jon Crowcroft wrote: > >>> it is a goal of much recent work (see Sewell et al in sigcomm 05 > >>> "Rigorous specification and conformance testing techniques for network protocols, > >>> as applied to TCP, UDP, and sockets" > >>> and various papers > >>> by Griffin and Sobrinho on Metarouting) > >>> to render protocols merely > >>> algorithmic specifications that are fed into engines that run them > >>> > >>> shame on us as computer scientists that > >>> we dont use such techniques on a daily basis for > >>> well-found engineering instead of the handwaving that passes > >>> for communications work still in the 21st century > >>> > >>> it is a technical AND ethical goal to make it so > >>> and should be a duty on all of us to get the law to recognize it > >>> > >>> > >>That's a plausible point of view. I heartily disagree, however. In > >>1974 or so, our research group (Saltzer, Clark, Reed, Liskov, Svobodova, > >>as I recall) decided that a *crucial* aspect of distributed systems was > >>that they exhibited "autonomy", which implies a serious notion of loose > >>coupling, flexibility, revisability, etc. That set of attributes are > >>crucial, leaving them out for the sake of formal methods is just another > >>Procrustean bed, where they are the Feet. > >> > >>*Protocols* are techniques for achieving communications in the face of > >>uncertainty about who is on the other side of the network. Not just an > >>unreliable network in the middle, but an uncertainty in a very > >>fundamental sense about what is on the other side. > >> > >>In "distributed systems" that must function in the real world, a core > >>and *essential* concept is that one must specify parts of the system to > >>work "right" EVEN IF THE DEFINITION OF RIGHT CANNOT BE WELL-DEFINED > >>MATHEMATICALLY. > >> > >>To someone who speaks English as a protocol, this is obvious. I can > >>try to convince you, for example, by the words above that I am right. > >>And I am using English correctly, and this can be verified. But it has > >>nothing to do whatsoever with being able to prove that you *will* agree > >>with me at the end of the conversation. Maybe it will take more > conversations, maybe not. > >> > >>But a protocol is not an algorithm executed by a complete set of formal > >>machines, though some protocols (a small subset might be in that > >>category). That is a sad, little boring and utlimately trivial subset > >>of the "protocols" of the world. Maybe it makes small-minded > >>mathematicians happy because they can close off a "formal system" and > >>prove theorems, as if proving theorems is the desired endpoint of system > >>design. But the ability to prove theorems is not the test of a > >>*useful* protocol set - neither of engineering value, nor of human > >>value. The ability to communicate (which cannot be formalized in any > >>way I know) is the correct test. The Internet is one example of a > >>system that succeeds in communicating, and there really was NOT a need > >>to define a formal specification of a collection of machines to achieve > >>that result. > >> > >> > > cheers > > jon > > > From L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk Fri Jan 4 09:46:54 2008 From: L.Wood at surrey.ac.uk (Lloyd Wood) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:46:54 +0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> Message-ID: <200801041747.RAA01412@cisco.com> At Friday 04/01/2008 09:30 -0800, Joe Touch wrote: >>> If they're >>> going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training >>> IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. >> >> Do you have examples of 'bailing out' to share? > >IMO, fixing getting CUBIC out of default distros is one. I very much doubt that any Linux developers are expecting anyone to be 'bailing them out' here. Ditto for any Microsoft Compound TCP developers. L. From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 09:30:24 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:30:24 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> Message-ID: <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> Lloyd Wood wrote: > At Friday 04/01/2008 07:53 -0800, Joe Touch wrote: >>> I'm >>> not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People >>> there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. >> FWIW, if they DO listen to good points, why isn't the mere fact that >> these protocols are Experimental not a sufficient point? > > because linux development, like all development, is itself experimental in nature. We're not talking about a variant that existed in someone's lab under controlled conditions. We're talking about public distributions. > The point about the difference between development and distribution > has been made previously by Reed. I'm talking about distros deploying experimental protocols in the wild. > (The problem of distinguishing between > development and distribution only really occurs once you have a large > userbase of non-developers. And doesn't the name Request For Comments > itself sound experimental?) Not when the label says "experiment" or "standards track" ;-) >> If they're >> going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training >> IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. > > Do you have examples of 'bailing out' to share? IMO, fixing getting CUBIC out of default distros is one. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/e73f2c0f/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 10:03:15 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:03:15 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <200801041747.RAA01412@cisco.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <200801041747.RAA01412@cisco.com> Message-ID: <477E74E3.3050501@isi.edu> Lloyd Wood wrote: > At Friday 04/01/2008 09:30 -0800, Joe Touch wrote: > >>>> If they're >>>> going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training >>>> IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. >>> Do you have examples of 'bailing out' to share? >> IMO, fixing getting CUBIC out of default distros is one. > > I very much doubt that any Linux developers are expecting anyone to > be 'bailing them out' here. Ditto for any Microsoft Compound TCP > developers. That, perhaps, is part of the problem. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/24275fa4/signature.bin From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 12:27:30 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:27:30 -0500 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> CUBIC is enabled in Fedora 8. However Fedora 8 is an experimental distribution, at least it is not viewed as "supported" by RedHat or any other vendor. Has the IETF become the protocol police? I do recall suggesting that the non-standard protocol called NAT was shipped by commercial companies like Microsoft and some "home router" hardware vendors while I was personally screaming and yelling about its non-standards track status. And those companies had the balls to say that because there was an RFC, it was a "standard" in their advertising. IETF refused to get its lawyers to sue the vendors who claimed the *lie* that NAT was a standard. I am not sure that gives it the standing to bar use of "experimental" software on the public Internet. Joe Touch wrote: > Lloyd Wood wrote: > >> At Friday 04/01/2008 07:53 -0800, Joe Touch wrote: >> >>>> I'm >>>> not aware of many Linux developers listening to this list. People >>>> there DO listen to good points so it is worth discussing there. >>>> >>> FWIW, if they DO listen to good points, why isn't the mere fact that >>> these protocols are Experimental not a sufficient point? >>> >> because linux development, like all development, is itself experimental in nature. >> > > We're not talking about a variant that existed in someone's lab under > controlled conditions. We're talking about public distributions. > > >> The point about the difference between development and distribution >> has been made previously by Reed. >> > > I'm talking about distros deploying experimental protocols in the wild. > > >> (The problem of distinguishing between >> development and distribution only really occurs once you have a large >> userbase of non-developers. And doesn't the name Request For Comments >> itself sound experimental?) >> > > Not when the label says "experiment" or "standards track" ;-) > > >>> If they're >>> going to play with fire, they ought to seek out their own fire training >>> IMO, not expect others to keep bailing them out when the get burned. >>> >> Do you have examples of 'bailing out' to share? >> > > IMO, fixing getting CUBIC out of default distros is one. > > Joe > > From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 12:43:21 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:43:21 -0500 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E74E3.3050501@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <200801041747.RAA01412@cisco.com> <477E74E3.3050501@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477E9A69.5030705@reed.com> Joe Touch wrote: >> I very much doubt that any Linux developers are expecting anyone to >> be 'bailing them out' here. Ditto for any Microsoft Compound TCP >> developers. >> > > That, perhaps, is part of the problem. > > Is there a Security Hole if CUBIC is used? Should I be really scared? Will I bring down the entire Internet? If I'm willing to take a risk myself (running Fedora is a moderate risk, like opening up the case on your PC and installing a new memory card) why should anyone worry about me needing to be bailed out? I'm honestly curious. Since I build my own kernels every day, I could just turn CUBIC off. But I figure that exercising it a bit in the *real* world is probably good. Is that any different than running CUBIC between PlanetLab nodes and users on PCs in academic computer networking research labs? From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 14:10:06 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:10:06 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> Message-ID: <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> David P. Reed wrote: > CUBIC is enabled in Fedora 8. However Fedora 8 is an experimental > distribution, at least it is not viewed as "supported" by RedHat or any > other vendor. > > Has the IETF become the protocol police? The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, though. ... > I am not sure that gives it the standing to bar use of "experimental" > software on the public Internet. It's not a matter of barring it per se; it's a matter of not enabling something by default that isn't explicitly intended to be an experiment. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/9c27c56a/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 14:10:00 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:10:00 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477E9A69.5030705@reed.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <200801041747.RAA01412@cisco.com> <477E74E3.3050501@isi.edu> <477E9A69.5030705@reed.com> Message-ID: <477EAEB8.2070207@isi.edu> David P. Reed wrote: > > > Joe Touch wrote: >>> I very much doubt that any Linux developers are expecting anyone to >>> be 'bailing them out' here. Ditto for any Microsoft Compound TCP >>> developers. >>> >> >> That, perhaps, is part of the problem. > > Is there a Security Hole if CUBIC is used? Should I be really scared? > Will I bring down the entire Internet? Nobody knows. Again, that's why controlled testing would have been useful, rather than widescale deployment. > If I'm willing to take a risk > myself (running Fedora is a moderate risk, like opening up the case on > your PC and installing a new memory card) why should anyone worry about > me needing to be bailed out? There are concerns about its fairness: http://www.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/2006-October/006327.html http://www.hamilton.ie/net/pfldnet2007_cubic_final.pdf There is a rebuttal as well: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rhee/Rebuttal-LSM-new.pdf The jury is out as to whether this is safe to deploy, AFAICT. > I'm honestly curious. Since I build my own kernels every day, I could > just turn CUBIC off. But I figure that exercising it a bit in the > *real* world is probably good. This sounds a lot like you're interested in participating in an experiment where you don't know the impact. Does that seem like a good idea to you? > Is that any different than running CUBIC between PlanetLab nodes and > users on PCs in academic computer networking research labs? Those users knew they were running experiments, and knew when they were over. Deploying CUBIC in public distributions lets the experiment out into thw wild, and is no longer a controlled, voluntary participation experiment. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/b0eb499b/signature.bin From huitema at windows.microsoft.com Fri Jan 4 15:15:49 2008 From: huitema at windows.microsoft.com (Christian Huitema) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:15:49 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> Message-ID: > > Has the IETF become the protocol police? > > The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, though. Well, who made you king? This is in fact a serious question, that goes well beyond the present discussion of CUBIC, or CTCP. I certainly respect the engineering talent of the people on this list, but we are speaking here of allowing or not some products to run on the Internet. I understand the feeling that improper use of some software might "harm the Internet". But where do we draw the line? Shall we ban Kazaa? BitTorrent? Skype? Video streaming over UDP? VoIP? Who draws that line? What are the checks and balances? Assuming that we can agree on who is the judge, who is the police? If there is a ban, how is that ban enforced? Do we rely on ISP to deploy some kind of firewalls? Do we ask the police to raid people's home and check that they are not using forbidden software? Do ask the department of commerce to ban the sale of some products? -- Christian Huitema From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 15:25:21 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:25:21 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> Christian Huitema wrote: >>> Has the IETF become the protocol police? >> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, though. > > Well, who made you king? One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or whether they were enabled without that understanding. Another question is whether Linux users should know when they are part of such an experiment or not. If Linux doesn't tell users and/or didn't know this was experimental, then maybe they should. Whether they will or not, maybe the IETFers will put up notices that educate users as to when they've been drafted as unwitting experimenters. That's the mechanism for feedback. The other is simply not using systems that make such decisions, which is where I stand. We're not king or judge or jury, but we are the 4th estate in this process. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/c6df13e2/signature.bin From huitema at windows.microsoft.com Fri Jan 4 15:43:39 2008 From: huitema at windows.microsoft.com (Christian Huitema) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:43:39 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> Message-ID: > Christian Huitema wrote: > >>> Has the IETF become the protocol police? > >> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, > though. > > > > Well, who made you king? > > One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an > experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or > whether they were enabled without that understanding. But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough for production use? -- Christian Huitema From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 15:50:53 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:50:53 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> Christian Huitema wrote: >> Christian Huitema wrote: >>>>> Has the IETF become the protocol police? >>>> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, >> though. >>> Well, who made you king? >> One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an >> experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or >> whether they were enabled without that understanding. > > But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough for production use? That's supposed to happen in the IETF. The protocol in question is being purported as experimental, not optional standards-track. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/59162a89/signature-0001.bin From gds at best.com Fri Jan 4 16:18:01 2008 From: gds at best.com (Greg Skinner) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 00:18:01 +0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu>; from touch@ISI.EDU on Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 03:25:21PM -0800 References: <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> Message-ID: <20080105001801.A88664@gds.best.vwh.net> On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 03:25:21PM -0800, Joe Touch wrote: > One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an > experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or > whether they were enabled without that understanding. > > Another question is whether Linux users should know when they are part > of such an experiment or not. > > If Linux doesn't tell users and/or didn't know this was experimental, > then maybe they should. Whether they will or not, maybe the IETFers will > put up notices that educate users as to when they've been drafted as > unwitting experimenters. Perhaps the folks in charge of creating these Linux distributions feel the "standard disclaimer" (the software is provided "as is" ...) justifies their release policies. --gregbo From slblake at petri-meat.com Fri Jan 4 16:45:41 2008 From: slblake at petri-meat.com (Steven Blake) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:45:41 -0500 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> Message-ID: <1199493941.16877.56.camel@tachyon> On Fri, 2008-01-04 at 13:51 +0000, Jon Crowcroft wrote: > you're starting to sound like Richard Dawkin's who seems to think that > human consciousness is not amanable to emulation by machine because > of quantum mechaninics....an even great heresy > > description doesn't mean 100% prediction...:) Perhaps you mean Roger Penrose? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind Regards, // Steve From huitema at windows.microsoft.com Fri Jan 4 16:44:44 2008 From: huitema at windows.microsoft.com (Christian Huitema) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 16:44:44 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> Message-ID: > From: Joe Touch [mailto:touch at ISI.EDU] > Christian Huitema wrote: > >> Christian Huitema wrote: > >>>>> Has the IETF become the protocol police? > >>>> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, > >> though. > >>> Well, who made you king? > >> One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an > >> experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or > >> whether they were enabled without that understanding. > > > > But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough > for production use? > > That's supposed to happen in the IETF. The protocol in question is > being purported as experimental, not optional standards-track. But that means that the IETF would in practice be the judge of what can be deployed in the Internet. It could simply withdraw its stamp of approval and that the product would then, in theory, never be deployed. What if the developers are convinced that their spec is good, and the IETF is just being slow? Do you really expect that whoever needs the product will just wait forever? -- Christian Huitema From randy at psg.com Fri Jan 4 16:54:30 2008 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:54:30 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> >> But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough >> for production use? > That's supposed to happen in the IETF. The protocol in question is > being purported as experimental, not optional standards-track. a protocol is experimental when someone is trying to convince us to try it and giving us the code to do so on common platform(s). (before then, it's just hot air) a protocol is production when customers want it and are willing to pay for at least the costs of deploying it. btw, what's "the IETF?" [0] randy --- [0] - http://rip.psg.com/~randy/051000.sigcomm-ivtf.pdf From dpreed at reed.com Fri Jan 4 18:23:31 2008 From: dpreed at reed.com (David P. Reed) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:23:31 -0500 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> Message-ID: <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> So let me suggest that the nice thing about the Internet is that in general, the core of the network doesn't care about the details of the end-to-end protocols that users deploy in their machines. There is much anxiety about "congestion control" and "fairness", of course. But ultimately, the network , the IETF, and the access providers that provide the last 10 meters are not the arbiters of such things. (in fact, the point is that the end users collectively have much more knowledge about what they are trying to do than the network routers, owners, and standardizers ever can). Thus, the end users ultimately get involved in the definition of what's fair, once they've paid for the right to originate packets to each other. Yeah, if the end users decide to get in fights among themselves, they get into fights. It's simple as that. It's no different than Pakistan or Kenya today. If enough of the people decide that they want to have a civil war, the government is not going to stop them. Fortunately, people are generally sensible after a while. Companies like Microsoft and projects like Linux generally can help by not creating self-sustaining catastrophic protocol structures and disseminatng them. But generally they don't for long. Bluetooth and WiFi protocols were at risk of jamming each other. But realizing that that would not do anyone any good, they came up with a pragmatic set of ameliorations. Those were hardly "optimum", but in practice they worked well enough. If CUBIC turns out to be an actual nightmare, Linux has ways to distribute updates that ameliorate the problem. I doubt it will get that bad in practice - Linux users are still pretty thin, and they do tend to download and apply patches much more rapidly than any other class of system users on the planet. Randy Bush wrote: >>> But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough >>> for production use? >> That's supposed to happen in the IETF. The protocol in question is >> being purported as experimental, not optional standards-track. > > a protocol is experimental when someone is trying to convince us to > try it and giving us the code to do so on common platform(s). (before > then, it's just hot air) > > a protocol is production when customers want it and are willing to pay > for at least the costs of deploying it. > > btw, what's "the IETF?" [0] > > randy > > --- > > [0] - http://rip.psg.com/~randy/051000.sigcomm-ivtf.pdf > From randy at psg.com Fri Jan 4 18:33:57 2008 From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 11:33:57 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> Message-ID: <477EEC95.8050905@psg.com> generally agree except for two points > So let me suggest that the nice thing about the Internet is that in > general, the core of the network doesn't care about the details of the > end-to-end protocols that users deploy in their machines. > > There is much anxiety about "congestion control" and "fairness", of > course. But ultimately, the network , the IETF, and the access > providers that provide the last 10 meters are not the arbiters of such > things. (in fact, the point is that the end users collectively have much > more knowledge about what they are trying to do than the network > routers, owners, and standardizers ever can). Thus, the end users > ultimately get involved in the definition of what's fair, once they've > paid for the right to originate packets to each other. > > Yeah, if the end users decide to get in fights among themselves, they > get into fights. It's simple as that. It's no different than Pakistan > or Kenya today. If enough of the people decide that they want to have > a civil war, the government is not going to stop them. given that people are being murdered, i do not look at kenya, pakistan, iraq, ... as positive examples. > Fortunately, people are generally sensible after a while. Companies > like Microsoft and projects like Linux generally can help by not > creating self-sustaining catastrophic protocol structures and > disseminatng them. But generally they don't for long. as someone trying to get microsoft to fix their seriously show-stopping bug that winxp with v6 turned on refuses to use v6 for dns transport, this is not one of my more optimistic days on this front. "buy vista" my ass; we have O(10^6) winxp customer users out there. > Bluetooth and WiFi protocols were at risk of jamming each other. But > realizing that that would not do anyone any good, they came up with a > pragmatic set of ameliorations. Those were hardly "optimum", but in > practice they worked well enough. > > If CUBIC turns out to be an actual nightmare, Linux has ways to > distribute updates that ameliorate the problem. I doubt it will get > that bad in practice - Linux users are still pretty thin, and they do > tend to download and apply patches much more rapidly than any other > class of system users on the planet. randy From rhee at ncsu.edu Fri Jan 4 19:37:45 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:37:45 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> Message-ID: <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> On Jan 5, 2008, at 11:23 AM, David P. Reed wrote: > > > If CUBIC turns out to be an actual nightmare, Linux has ways to > distribute updates that ameliorate the problem. I doubt it will > get that bad in practice - Linux users are still pretty thin, and > they do tend to download and apply patches much more rapidly than > any other class of system users on the planet. > > > Over 40% of Internet servers in the world are Linux-based. So the users may be thin, but my guess is that a significant share of Internet traffic is from Linux, and also from CUBIC these days. Note that much portion of these servers are P2P servers which are the main contributors of the Internet traffic. CUBIC/BIC has been enabled as the default for Linux for several years. I am not sure about the role of IETF at this stage even when the protocol is already out there and being used as a de facto standard that constitutes a major portion of the Internet traffic. What "bailing out" have IETF folks been performing for Linux-developers? I don't see the penalty that users, ISPs, academics and Mr. Joe next door have paid because of its use. I don't see the Internet is being crashed or crumbling down because of CUBIC. From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 21:34:55 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:34:55 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> Message-ID: <477F16FF.9090405@isi.edu> Christian Huitema wrote: >> From: Joe Touch [mailto:touch at ISI.EDU] >> Christian Huitema wrote: >>>> Christian Huitema wrote: >>>>>>> Has the IETF become the protocol police? >>>>>> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, >>>> though. >>>>> Well, who made you king? >>>> One question is whether they were enabled to deliberately explore an >>>> experimental protocol in a widely-deployed public distribution, or >>>> whether they were enabled without that understanding. >>> But who decides whether a protocol is experimental, or good enough >> for production use? >> >> That's supposed to happen in the IETF. The protocol in question is >> being purported as experimental, not optional standards-track. > > But that means that the IETF would in practice be the judge of what > can be deployed in the Internet. In this case, it means that the people who came up with CUBIC consider it experimental. It's not like the IETF stamped that on *their* Internet Draft. You raise interesting questions in the general case, and yes, it's the standards community that defines the standards. Who else would? > What if the developers are convinced that their spec is good, and the > IETF is just being slow? Do you really expect that whoever needs the > product will just wait forever? There are plenty of protocols that never went through the IETF, or went through as Informational because they didn't *ask* to be standardized. Again, that's an interesting academic question, but not relevant to protocols that actually ask to be experimental by the developers. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/a0844fde/signature-0001.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Fri Jan 4 21:42:49 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:42:49 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> Message-ID: <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> Injong Rhee wrote: ... > I don't see the > penalty that users, ISPs, academics and Mr. Joe next door have paid > because of its use. I don't see the Internet is being crashed or > crumbling down because of CUBIC. You don't see it because nobody is measuring it or even looking for it. Deploying a protocol and not seeing a problem isn't proof that it's not causing harm now, and it's not proof it won't cause harm in certain deployment scenarios. If "works most of the time for most people" were sufficient, we could pare the TCP state machine down by 1/3, and cut out all options including SACK. Yes, not causing harm right now is a start, but it's nowhere near the end. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080104/5395701e/signature.bin From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Sat Jan 5 01:45:00 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:45:00 +0000 Subject: [e2e] patents on routing algorithms In-Reply-To: <1199493941.16877.56.camel@tachyon> References: <477C534D.3090206@reed.com> <477C7660.8020406@isi.edu> <477D55CF.5040704@isi.edu> <477D6109.9020701@reed.com> <477E37CF.5010707@reed.com> <1199493941.16877.56.camel@tachyon> Message-ID: oxford professors are very confusing - of course you are right - penrose was the chap and the emperors new mind the book - not anything to do with god, kings or ietf related patents or working code which might be a shared delusion In missive <1199493941.16877.56.camel at tachyon>, Steven Blake typed: >>On Fri, 2008-01-04 at 13:51 +0000, Jon Crowcroft wrote: >> >>> you're starting to sound like Richard Dawkin's who seems to think that >>> human consciousness is not amanable to emulation by machine because >>> of quantum mechaninics....an even great heresy >>> >>> description doesn't mean 100% prediction...:) >> >>Perhaps you mean Roger Penrose? >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Mind >> >> >>Regards, >> >>// Steve >> cheers jon From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Sat Jan 5 01:55:08 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:55:08 +0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> Message-ID: time was, there was an ecosystem made out of a bunch of identifiable pieces (researchers in labs in universities and companies, the irtf grousp, the acm sigcomm and related ieee comsoc groups, interop, and fringes, lots of small and large companies whose empployees implicitly understood that community) the community had no kings, but had a small number of visible touchstone pieces of code (whether bsd or linux or mit c code or later ones)... rough consensus in that community did two things... it allowed diversity (different implementations persisted in parallel, while evaluation happened) it allowed for convergence (when improvements were visible, they could be rapidly applied from publically visible implementations into provate ones - e..g bsd code ideas into solaris code, or linux code/ideas into router bgp tcp code just for examples)... the ietf might ratify it but it was largely irrelevent if it did or did not as it was really just recognizing that community... that time is gone - lots of reasons i) research engine behind the community is dead (moved on to other things ii) lots of the code aint visible (e.g. microsofts was invisible to lots of people, and linux code is invisible by lawyer dictat to lots of microsoft people - i'm not bashing microsoft - just pointing out that a large area of crossover is not mitigated through paper and text discussions, not through inspecting code that is operating). iii) after the mid 90s, a lot of people (yes, even academics) were more motivated by spinouts and startups than by working for the community, so competition rather than cooperation became the mode of play - this means that you dont often see free code releases of new ideas and you can't trust what thr authors' say about their code as they are prone to be exagerating the benefits and downplaying the negative sides, (yes, academics do this - its the most annoying feature of many internet-related papers in the last 10 years). one mistake we probably made was way back when (mid 90s) we discussed mearging ietf, sigcomm and interop (in terms of co-lo events) like sigraph, so that practioners, theory and standards all would meet 1 per year in the same place (usually las vegas as thats the only place that seems to be able to host 50,000 people events with hi tech stuff to show off:) - on the other hand, perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference so now we have divergence, no consensus, and we don't even know how things work any more or when they dont work or why In missive , Christian Huitema typed: >>> > Has the IETF become the protocol police? >>> >>> The IETF has not; members of the IETF have taken the task on, though. >> >>Well, who made you king? >> >>This is in fact a serious question, that goes well beyond the present discussion of CUBIC, or CTCP. I certainly respect the engineering talent of the people on this list, but we are speaking here of allowing or not some products to run on the Internet. I understand the feeling that improper use of some software might "harm the Internet". But where do we draw the line? Shall we ban Kazaa? BitTorrent? Skype? Video streaming over UDP? VoIP? Who draws that line? What are the checks and balances? >> >>Assuming that we can agree on who is the judge, who is the police? If there is a ban, how is that ban enforced? Do we rely on ISP to deploy some kind of firewalls? Do we ask the police to raid people's home and check that they are not using forbidden software? Do ask the department of commerce to ban the sale of some products? >> >>-- Christian Huitema >> >> >> >> >> cheers jon From rhee at ncsu.edu Sat Jan 5 03:16:20 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 20:16:20 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> Message-ID: <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> On Jan 5, 2008, at 2:42 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > > > Injong Rhee wrote: > ... >> I don't see the >> penalty that users, ISPs, academics and Mr. Joe next door have paid >> because of its use. I don't see the Internet is being crashed or >> crumbling down because of CUBIC. > > You don't see it because nobody is measuring it or even looking for > it. > Deploying a protocol and not seeing a problem isn't proof that it's > not > causing harm now, and it's not proof it won't cause harm in certain > deployment scenarios. > > If "works most of the time for most people" were sufficient, we could > pare the TCP state machine down by 1/3, and cut out all options > including SACK. > > Yes, not causing harm right now is a start, but it's nowhere near > the end. > > Joe > Yes. There are no reported cases of harm in real production networks. Just yet. But if you have seen my work on the evaluation of CUBIC/BIC (http:// netsrv.csc.ncsu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/BIC#Experimental_Results), they are quite extensive. Our emulation involves routers, packet capturing, monitoring, etc., and they also involve extensive background traffic generations. They only stop short of testing in the real production networks - which i can't since the testing requires overloading the production networks. You might argue that our topology is not diverse enough, but well, i don't have funds/tech support to make it more diverse. I am not sure whether those *IETF standard* TCP algorithms were tested as extensively as CUBIC/BIC. I doubt that the process taken at that time were as much rigorous as we are with CUBIC/BIC. I am not sure either whether it is the job of IETF to prove it is safe and harmless-- how do they know? When those "standard" algorithms are IETF standardized, had they more evaluation than CUBIC/BIC? At best, they had ns-2 simulation. Back then there is no definition of realistic traffic patterns. I agree that our tests may not be enough to satisfy the IETF champions, but what is enough and how do they know without muddling their hands with testing? From Michael.Welzl at uibk.ac.at Sat Jan 5 03:59:45 2008 From: Michael.Welzl at uibk.ac.at (Michael Welzl) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:59:45 +0100 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> Message-ID: <1199534385.477f7131ef502@web-mail1.uibk.ac.at> > Joe Touch wrote: > > Injong Rhee wrote: > ... > > I don't see the > > penalty that users, ISPs, academics and Mr. Joe next door have paid > > because of its use. I don't see the Internet is being crashed or > > crumbling down because of CUBIC. > > You don't see it because nobody is measuring it or even looking for it. > Deploying a protocol and not seeing a problem isn't proof that it's not > causing harm now, and it's not proof it won't cause harm in certain > deployment scenarios. > > If "works most of the time for most people" were sufficient, we could > pare the TCP state machine down by 1/3, and cut out all options > including SACK. > > Yes, not causing harm right now is a start, but it's nowhere near the end. Indeed - and I'd like to connect this with the question that David asked previously: > Is that [using it in one's home system] any different > than running CUBIC between PlanetLab nodes and users > on PCs in academic computer networking research labs? Yes it probably is, but in both cases, it's not a very reasonable experiment. Case 1, your home: probably your access link will be the bottleneck, and the window will not be very large. In this situation, the difference between CUBIC and TCP will not be very significant because CUBIC is designed to behave like TCP in environments where the BDP or at least the RTT are small. If I'm wrong about the bottleneck in your home, it's the same as case 2 below... Case 2, PlanetLab: We sent TCP traffic to PlanetLab nodes from a Linux system with a Web 100 kernel and found that, even with standard TCP, the limitation is almost always from the receiver window. To conclude, IMO, we can't regard the use of CUBIC in Linux as a proper wide-scale experiment due to the lack of support and use of window scaling in the Internet. I know we discussed this point in the past, but really, I think that this is much more of an issue than everything else when we talk about TCP. After all, who cares whether end systems use Compound TCP, CUBIC or BIC, when all these systems are fair towards TCP by design when windows are small, and in fact windows never really get to be large? Then again, I don't know how to solve the problem. One possibility might be mapping a single TCP flow onto multiple TCPs (because the rwnd limit is per-flow) and dynamically switch between them... but I think that this doesn't make a lot of sense in the light of the underlying effort-vs-ugliness tradeoff. Cheers, Michael From touch at ISI.EDU Sat Jan 5 08:51:55 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:51:55 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> Message-ID: <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Injong Rhee wrote: >... >> Yes, not causing harm right now is a start, but it's nowhere near the >> end. >> >> Joe > > Yes. There are no reported cases of harm in real production networks. > Just yet. > > But if you have seen my work on the evaluation of CUBIC/BIC > (http://netsrv.csc.ncsu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/BIC#Experimental_Results), > they are quite extensive. I have also seen the cited reports of problems with CUBIC/BIC. ... > I am not sure whether those *IETF standard* TCP algorithms were tested > as extensively as CUBIC/BIC. Certainly. But the key is whether we need a new algorithm, whether there is a benefit, and whether the benefit warrants the risks. That may all have been proven sufficiently for a wide-scale test with volunteers aware that they're participating, but I don't like the idea of releasing this to unwitting users without making it clear they're part of such an experiment. IMO, the widescale volunteer test is the step that has been skipped here. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080105/a5ed3a3d/signature.bin From Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk Sat Jan 5 09:36:11 2008 From: Jon.Crowcroft at cl.cam.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 17:36:11 +0000 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Message-ID: there were interesting discussions about the bittyrant work last year where a new torrent client was released and used to do experiments....informed consent from users was sort of fine printed somewhat:) on the other hand, if you want a proper control group and a distributed congestion control or any other resource manager scheme includes an element of user behaviour, then you haev a problem conducting science without having uninformed as well as informed users (and non users...) In missive <477FB5AB.3090601 at isi.edu>, Joe Touch typed: >>Certainly. But the key is whether we need a new algorithm, whether there >>is a benefit, and whether the benefit warrants the risks. That may all >>have been proven sufficiently for a wide-scale test with volunteers >>aware that they're participating, but I don't like the idea of releasing >>this to unwitting users without making it clear they're part of such an >>experiment. IMO, the widescale volunteer test is the step that has been >>skipped here. >> >>Joe >> >> >>--------------enig8E1133BA9230959A203A9B5E >>Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" >>Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature >>Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" >> >>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >>Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) >>Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >> >>iD8DBQFHf7WsE5f5cImnZrsRAqtQAKDUWpkUF2pIQKs2S+UFQdR51GIKzQCeOSUu >>+VjslEfW6K4LFYUZytnSiBg= >>=ldzH >>-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >> >>--------------enig8E1133BA9230959A203A9B5E-- cheers jon From rhee at ncsu.edu Sat Jan 5 16:36:16 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:36:16 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Message-ID: There have been a lot of discussions even in this mailing list on why tcp-newreno fails in certain cases -- i don't want to go through that discussion again. I agree that the process could have been more diplomatic and it could have been improved. However, what's done is done. Wide-scale tests in some sense have been done for three to four years, as you said, unknowingly. If you don't trust that as a test, I am puzzled on what kind of wide-scale tests (with volunteers) we can do without causing disruption on the production networks. Could you suggest the kind of wide-scale tests we can do with proper measurement and real users involved in real Internet and without causing disruption? It seems almost unrealistic. Besides, were the same types of tests performed before their release of IETF TCPs? was it less disruptive then than now to introduce new algorithms without proper wide-scale tests? Injong On Jan 6, 2008, at 1:51 AM, Joe Touch wrote: > > Certainly. But the key is whether we need a new algorithm, whether > there > is a benefit, and whether the benefit warrants the risks. That may all > have been proven sufficiently for a wide-scale test with volunteers > aware that they're participating, but I don't like the idea of > releasing > this to unwitting users without making it clear they're part of > such an > experiment. IMO, the widescale volunteer test is the step that has > been > skipped here. > > Joe > From rhee at ncsu.edu Sat Jan 5 16:40:08 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:40:08 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Message-ID: <20ED0D78-51ED-4D34-A4FB-4225B6A2C723@ncsu.edu> Good points! It is always difficult, if not impossible, to inform the entire users in the Internet in this regard because the Internet is shared. If you do this in an isolated networks only involving consent users, then the test may not be wide-scale enough or realistic. Injong On Jan 6, 2008, at 2:36 AM, Jon Crowcroft wrote: > there were interesting discussions about the bittyrant work last > year where a new > torrent client was released and used to do experiments....informed > consent from > users was sort of fine printed somewhat:) > > on the other hand, if you want a proper control group and a > distributed > congestion control or any other resource manager > scheme includes an element of user behaviour, then you haev a > problem conducting > science without having uninformed as well as informed users (and > non users...) > > In missive <477FB5AB.3090601 at isi.edu>, Joe Touch typed: > >>> Certainly. But the key is whether we need a new algorithm, >>> whether there >>> is a benefit, and whether the benefit warrants the risks. That >>> may all >>> have been proven sufficiently for a wide-scale test with volunteers >>> aware that they're participating, but I don't like the idea of >>> releasing >>> this to unwitting users without making it clear they're part of >>> such an >>> experiment. IMO, the widescale volunteer test is the step that >>> has been >>> skipped here. >>> >>> Joe >>> >>> >>> --------------enig8E1133BA9230959A203A9B5E >>> Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" >>> Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature >>> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" >>> >>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) >>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org >>> >>> iD8DBQFHf7WsE5f5cImnZrsRAqtQAKDUWpkUF2pIQKs2S+UFQdR51GIKzQCeOSUu >>> +VjslEfW6K4LFYUZytnSiBg= >>> =ldzH >>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >>> >>> --------------enig8E1133BA9230959A203A9B5E-- > > cheers > > jon > From rhee at ncsu.edu Sat Jan 5 16:51:32 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:51:32 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Message-ID: <2FA84A86-D8C8-40B2-A5C0-972F256C4C7C@ncsu.edu> > > I have also seen the cited reports of problems with CUBIC/BIC. >> Sure. But I want folks to look at the tests and the reports carefully or even try them by themselves. I am sure you will know it works! But i see the attitude of people who are mad just because its default release in Linux rather than trying to understand it technically first. I am working on a congestion control public testbed where people can try for themselves without investing too much time if they do care and we are also working with a number of people (e.g., TMRG) to agree on benchmark test suites. Injong From touch at ISI.EDU Sat Jan 5 21:17:09 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:17:09 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> Message-ID: <47806455.8040508@isi.edu> Injong Rhee wrote: ... > I agree that the process could have been more diplomatic and it could > have been improved. However, what's done is done. Wide-scale tests in > some sense have been done for three to four years, as you said, > unknowingly. If you don't trust that as a test, I am puzzled on what > kind of wide-scale tests (with volunteers) we can do without causing > disruption on the production networks. For all you know there have been problems - either failure to provide benefit (which is otherwise harmless), or real problems - which you haven't bothered to detect or collect statistics on. Closing your eyes when you run an experiment doesn't declare it a success. > Could you suggest the kind of wide-scale tests we can do with proper > measurement and real users involved in real Internet and without causing > disruption? It seems almost unrealistic. Ask the same people at the IETF you did an end-run around by accepting Experimental status. > Besides, were the same types ofelow). > tests performed before their release of IETF TCPs? There was quite a bit of testing and peer review. If you really want to find out what everyone on this list thinks of how this evolved, why don't you tell them what you told me in a private email about why you chose experimental track rather than standards track. The rest of us have the guts to go through peer review when we muck with standards. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080105/32ada10f/signature.bin From touch at ISI.EDU Sat Jan 5 21:21:33 2008 From: touch at ISI.EDU (Joe Touch) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:21:33 -0800 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <2FA84A86-D8C8-40B2-A5C0-972F256C4C7C@ncsu.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> <2FA84A86-D8C8-40B2-A5C0-972F256C4C7C@ncsu.edu> Message-ID: <4780655D.30009@isi.edu> Injong Rhee wrote: > >> >> I have also seen the cited reports of problems with CUBIC/BIC. >>> > > Sure. But I want folks to look at the tests and the reports carefully or > even try them by themselves. I am sure you will know it works! But i see > the attitude of people who are mad just because its default release in > Linux rather than trying to understand it technically first. People like me are mad because they ended up part of your experiment before we had a chance to review your results, understand it technically, and decide in the contents of an IETF standards track discussion whether it was useful. That's the point of the IETF standards track. > I am working on a congestion control public testbed where people can try > for themselves without investing too much time if they do care and we > are also working with a number of people (e.g., TMRG) to agree on > benchmark test suites. Why announce it? Why not just silently deploy it in Linux, omit the measurements because they'd be disruptive, and then declare it all works in a few years? Seriously, I'm not against new protocols in general. I'm just not in favor of silent deployment of new protocols to the unaware. Joe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 250 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/end2end-interest/attachments/20080105/e48c7257/signature.bin From rhee at ncsu.edu Sat Jan 5 23:32:24 2008 From: rhee at ncsu.edu (Injong Rhee) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 16:32:24 +0900 Subject: [e2e] Are we doing sliding window in the Internet? In-Reply-To: <4780655D.30009@isi.edu> References: <003801c73448$713c10c0$6e8944c6@telemuse.net> <45A4D230.5020105@web.de> <477D6A3E.7080900@isi.edu> <603BF90EB2E7EB46BF8C226539DFC20701316AE2@EVS-EC1-NODE1.surrey.ac.uk> <477DA1D1.50809@reed.com> <477DC5DA.6070800@isi.edu> <5640c7e00801032220h1fa945b9k61a01c70235fb035@mail.gmail.com> <477E5677.6010808@isi.edu> <200801041713.RAA29230@cisco.com> <477E6D30.1080905@isi.edu> <477E96B2.3000600@reed.com> <477EAEBE.9080906@isi.edu> <477EC061.4080101@isi.edu> <477EC65D.1010606@isi.edu> <477ED546.6040005@psg.com> <477EEA23.8070901@reed.com> <071424AB-2FEB-418E-AEDA-849913F9D0B4@ncsu.edu> <477F18D9.30106@isi.edu> <700B57DF-259E-45F0-8234-AE1D504D8027@ncsu.edu> <477FB5AB.3090601@isi.edu> <2FA84A86-D8C8-40B2-A5C0-972F256C4C7C@ncsu.edu> <4780655D.30009@isi.edu> Message-ID: <3CDCACF9-ECE7-4682-8109-30AFF85B27DA@ncsu.edu> >> >> Sure. But I want folks to look at the tests and the reports >> carefully or >> even try them by themselves. I am sure you will know it works! But >> i see >> the attitude of people who are mad just because its default >> release in >> Linux rather than trying to understand it technically first. > > People like me are mad because they ended up part of your experiment > before we had a chance to review your results, understand it > technically, and decide in the contents of an IETF standards track > discussion whether it was useful. > > That's the point of the IETF standards track. 1. I publish the research results through peer-reviewed papers and perform my experiments in a safe way without involving you. Whether I should go through the standard process like IETF or not is purely based on political/business reasons. I personally don't do the experiment in public at others' expense. 2. I believe i have done justice in terms of conducting extensive