Mike Tomlinson  wrote:
> En el artículo , The Natural Philosopher
>  escribió:
>
>> However did the TCP/IP standard happen without the EU!
>
> Europe's answer to TCP/IP was OSI, and look what happened to that.  Just
> as well it never came about, we wouldn't have an internet today.
>
> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/osi-the-internet-that-wasnt
>

Ironically, HP decided in the mid-80s to forego proprietary networking and
go with a global open standard, OSI.

By the early 90s, customers were rejecting HP for its "proprietary" OSI, in
favor of _ad hoc_ TCP/IP!

Needless to say, HP rapidly switched to TCP/IP, led by its UNIX offerings,
which rapidly became its dominant OS.

Standards can be either _de jure_ or _ad hoc_, based on market dominance.
Networking is a kind of special case, since its essential value is in
direct (or even quadratic) proportion to its interoperability.

Sometimes by virtue of utility or priority a particular technology achieves
market dominance and resultant _ad hoc_ standardization--the "waterhole
effect".

In other cases, multiple comparable competing technologies battle to a
stalemate or continuing fragmentation. In such cases, a _de jure_ selection
can provide real value to providers and consumers alike.

--
-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II:  http://michaeljmahon.com

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