[Info-vax] An alternative history of computing

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 7/25/21 4:16 PM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <sdh8uv$6kd$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
> 
>> Unfortunately, a protocol which only opens its lower layers and only
>> 1 or 2 of its upper layer protocols is not open in any way that could
>> accurately be described as open.
>>
>> It would be like saying that TCP/IP is open if only everything at TCP
>> level and below was fully open along with FTP and a partial Telnet
>> specification while everything else in the TCP/IP stack was fully closed.
>>
>> The point of an open protocol is that you can fully implement another
>> full version of it just by reading the specifications. You can do that
>> with TCP/IP but you most certainly cannot do that with the subset of
>> DECnet specifications that are available.
>>
>> Not even the MAIL protocol is documented in public. That would be like
>> calling TCP/IP open while keeping the SMTP specification closed.
> 
> There are lies, damn lies, and open systems.
> 

Which makes it even more interesting that the Linux DECnet subsystem
has commands for doing DECnet MAIL.

bill