From: Pete Loshin <pete@loshin.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 01:46:35 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: "Proprietary" internetworking protocols (was RE: The future will be easy to use )
Message-ID: <01BABF1F.0246DD80@ploshin.tiac.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Perry wrote:
>Pete Loshin writes:
>> I was simply observing that Perry's comment:
>> 
>> "...an internetworking protocol [e.g. SKIP] used by only 
>> one vendor gets nowhere."
>> 
>> is not necessarily true, and pointed to SSL and NFS as 
>> counter-examples.
>
>I disagree.
>
>First of all, NFS was not competing with other widely available
>standards.

Neither was SSL, for that matter.  But it seems like every vendor
who's written an S-HTTP browser/server is adding SSL for version 1.1.

>Second of all, other vendors are committed to developing the other
>standard.
>
>What good will it be to run SKIP when your Cisco router wants to talk
>to you with something else?

None, of course, just as rsh doesn't help me connect to a telnet 
server. My comment wasn't on the wisdom of SKIP, but rather on 
the specific statement Perry made about single vendors being able 
to drive certain protocols on their own (e.g., SSL and others).

More interesting from the historical view (but lacking in crypto 
significance so I'll refrain from further posting on the topic) 
is the question of what other protocols have been put forth by 
single vendors and gained major market share.

-pl