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The Meeting

On Tuesday, March 17, 1970, I hosted a Network meeting at UCLA. About 25 people attended, including representatives from MIT, LL, BBN, Harvard, SRI, Utah, UCSB, SDC, RAND and UCLA. I presented a modification of the protocol in NWG/RFC #33; the modifications are sketchily documented in NWG/RFC #36. The main modification is the facility for dynamic reconnection.

The protocol based on sockets and undistinguished simplex connections is quite different from the previous protocol as documented in NWG/RFC #11. The impetus for making such changes came out of the network meeting on December 8, 1969, at Utah, at which time the limitations of a log-in requirement and the inability to connect arbitrary processes was seriously challenged. Accordingly, the primary reason for the recent meeting was to sample opinion on the new protocol.

Recollections may vary, but it is my opinion that the protocol was widely accepted and that the criticism and discussion fell into two categories:

  1. Questioning the complexity and usefulness of the full protocol, especially the need for dynamic reconnection.

  2. Other topics, particularly character set translation, higher level languages, incompatible equipment, etc.

Notably lacking was any criticism of the basic concepts of sockets and connections. (Some have since surfaced.) The following agreements were made:

  1. By April 30, I would be responsible for publishing an implementable specification along lines presented.

  2. Any interested party would communicate with me (at least) immediately if he wished to modify the protocol.

  3. If major modifications come under consideration, interested parties would meet again. This would happen in two to three weeks.

  4. Jim Forgie of Lincoln Labs tentatively agreed to host a meeting on higher level network languages, probably near Spring Joint time.