On Tue, Jun 28, 2022 at 9:15 AM Marc Donner <marc.donner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
My perception of the debate at the time was that it
pitted proprietary
networking (SNA, DECNet, ...) against open networking (TCP/IP). The
hardware vendors wanted proprietary networking to lock customers into their
equipment, but that dog would not hunt.
Metcalfe's law: "*value of a network is proportional to the square of
the
number of connected users of the system*." The problem with a walled garden
is that it can only grow as large as the walls allow.
It was pretty clear that except for the clever encapsulation stuff that
Vint had done with IP, the TCP/IP world was quick and dirty and quite
slapdash. But it was non-proprietary and that is what won the race.
Point taken, but I actually think it is more of a Christensen-style disruption
where the 'lessor technology' outstrips the more sophisticated one because
it finds/creates a new market that values that new technology for what it
is and cares less about the ways it may be 'lessor.'
I described this in a talk I did at Asilomar a few years back. This is the
most important slide:
[image: ColesLaw20190222.png]
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