Talk:Open Systems Interconnection
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[edit] Serious neutrality issues
I have corrected the worst NPOV problem, the claim that there were no nonproprietary network technologies before OSI. I have not corrected the others, for example the ridiculously biased claim that the OSI model was "the most important advance in education about networking". Looking at some of this text, I am actually seriously concerned that it may have been copied from the introduction to one of those long propagandist tomes about OSI published by researchers disgruntled that the Internet had passed them by in the late 1980s -- but I would have no idea how to figure out which one; these books are thankfully no longer in print.
No Wikipedia article should ever contain a claim of the form "X is the most important Y" as far as I'm concerned -- it is basically impossible to make such a claim from an NPOV.
Tls 20:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Still in use
CLNP is still widely used today in many telecommunications networks (Mainly the transmission area) around the world. Still the new systems delivered utilise this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.219.152.52 (talk • contribs) 09:53, 4 May 2004.
[edit] Correct name
Shouldn't this page be Open Systems Interconnection? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ed Zietarski (talk • contribs) 11:22, 2 July 2005.
- I think you're right. I just looked at some old ISO Bulletin articles I happen to have lying around and the term used in the 1980s was Open Systems Interconnection. Does anyone around here know how to move pages? --Coolcaesar 3 July 2005 04:06 (UTC)
- Holy bat-packet! I always though it was "connect", but I've just checked too, and you're right, it is "connection", e.g. "ISO 7498:1984 Open Systems Interconnection - Basic Reference Model". My only question is whether the early (70's) documents used "connect" - this one is '84. Let me check and see (and I just got finished moving it to Open Systems Interconnect, too - grrr). Noel (talk) 00:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
- Well, I've checked everything I've got, and I can only find "connection". I don't have any of the really early stuff (the first OSI Reference Model was published in '77 by the CCITT), but everything I have says "connection". So, I'll move the page... Noel (talk) 02:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] QS: X400 vs SMTP
- For example, the definition for OSI's X.400 e-mail standards took up several large books, while the Internet e-mail (SMTP) definition took only a few dozen pages in RFC-821. It should be noted, however, that over time there have been numerous RFCs which extended the original SMTP definition, so that its complete documentation finally took up several large books as well.
That's a horrible compromise of some POV argument, sounds much like a sandbox argument to me. Either you have a point or you don't. You cannot say, we have this strong argument in favor of something, but, then again, it should be noted that it's not really an argument. --141.20.53.108 09:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
You seem to have taken this out of context. Due to the nature of the now extint disagreement over the OSI Protocol's acceptability, this cannot be examined with an eye for technology and the biases that come with being a technophile. Instead, it must be considered with a mind for business.
Consider this when deciding whether or not it is an argument. The OSI took quite some time (a time period which includes the devlopment of the reference model as well) to fully develop and be published. Of those years, it can easily be assumed that only a portion of them were eaten up by the creation of QS:X400. It was several large volumes at creation. SMTP may now be several volumes in its own right, but this appears to be an evolutionary process rather than a birth defect as it was with the OSI.
It is not an argument over which is better. It is a simple statement of fact. Companies producing the necessary software and hardware for interconnectivity did not want to completely overhaul their production lines or code to accommodate the sudden appearance of the Encyclopedia Britannica of network models. It would cost them a fortune, and there was no guarantee it would catch on in the world at large. That appears to be the point being made in this statement. It would take weeks if not months of study just to fully read through and understand these protocols if the person is starting from the ground up. What would have made SMTP more acceptable for production purposes is the fact that it started out small and easy. In working its way toward massive, the bits added on later could be incorporated a little at a time because it already had a solid foundation. The adjustments in production would be minor and therefore more cost effective.
[edit] Mailer Science
We implemented some pieces of X.400 at Bell Labs in the late 1980s. The Red-Book description of X.400 was not that big, but when the Blue Book came out, it was a telephone book! I included a comment in the article, based on a report which was published then (but sorry, I don't recall where) about the failure of French and German X.400 messaging systems to communicate. One was using delimiter-terminated strings and another was using a count/data format. These were options, and you didn't have to do implement both, so the two system were incompatable. A visiting scientist from IBM told us that it took several CPU seconds to send one X.400 message, in their experimental system. That seemed almost unbelievable to us...how naive we were about bloatware in those days.
At that time, SMTP was also heavily criticized for its complexity and almost numberless security holes. When 4.2 BSD came out, the email server brought the system to its knees and took minutes to send a message to more than a dozen people. The email problem seemed to attract a certain type of eager but not very talented mind. The mathematician Jim Reeds coined the phrase "Mailer Science" to describe the characteristic careless and bloated design style.
There are also horror stories about TP4 performance. It was a very inefficient protocol compared to TCP. I don't know how to communicate these problems here. I'm not going to stick unreferenced anecdotes into an article, but there were serious problems with OSI. It didn't just die because companies thought it was too expensive. It died in part because it was badly designed by folks who were in way over their heads. DonPMitchell 02:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Proposed merge with "OSI model"
I'd say "no" - this page discusses the overall OSI project, while OSI model discusses a specific item, the OSI networking model, that this page claims antedated the project. Guy Harris 19:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I also agree, the articles should not be merged. The OSI project is not the same things as the OSI model, which has been used to discuss many different network protocol schemes. DonPMitchell 21:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree also , there is no reason to merge two articles one about a standards body and one about a standard by that body--Mancini 14:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree either. No merge! 72.76.184.189 16:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Final Chapter
The article lacks a concise statement as to when and how the OSI vendors ceased promoting this solution and adopted TCP/IP, or withdrew from the market. 21:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- First-hand experts could maybe illuminate re this?--The world salutes the Rising Star...Try to be One 10:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Question
The collapse of the OSI project in 1996 severely damaged the reputation and legitimacy of the organizations involved, especially ISO. The worst part was that OSI's backers took too long to recognize and accommodate the dominance of the TCP/IP protocol suite. The financial damage done to Japan and Europe (where internet deployment was delayed by years) is difficult to estimate.
Is it the generic internet(working technology) or the public Internet?
[edit] Byzantine
Could someone please replace the adjective Byzantine with a more widely understood word. I am afraid to do any changes myself because I do not know exactly what it means. Velle 18:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
- The adjective is fine. It is a commonly used term in standard written English. The literal meaning (denotation) is anything associated with the Byzantine Empire. The figurative meaning (connotation), which is probably the one intended here, is anything that is mazelike, confusing, or overly complex. --Coolcaesar 22:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
