From: assela@marcus.its.rpi.edu (A. Andre Asselin)
Subject: Re: ibm tcp/ip a ripoff?
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:25:54 GMT

eengelke@sail.uwaterloo.ca (Erick Engelke) writes:
>In article <1iratf$aqq@agate.berkeley.edu> jp1ek@sunc.shef.ac.uk writes:
>>i am beginning to think ibm tcp/ip is a rip off.  my comparative
>>reference is the wattcp freeware tcp/ip for msdos and tcp/ip for
>>xenix.

>As the author of the cheaper one you mention, here are some
>observations and comments.

As a former co-op in IBM's TCP/IP development, here are mine...

>>c) few ethernet cards supported (compared to wattcp with clarkson
>>packet drivers);
>Clarkson and later CRYNWR packet drivers have served wonderfully
>over the years.  But probably one of the greatest contributions
>was Russ's skeleton which allowed anyone to write a decent driver
>for any new hardware they encounterred.  

>To my knowledge, there is no NDIS driver freely available in source 
>code for either DOS or OS/2.  From my warped view that makes it seem
>like every hardware manufacturer has to either contract an overpriced
>NDIS writing team or learn the hard way.

>And the configuration is pretty gruesome.  I find this true of
>all NDIS installations, who decided we didn't mind rebooting
>20 times and manually editing scripts just to get the configuration 
>right or if we want to try someone else's TCP.

>I can run DOS based ODI and Packet Drivers fine under DOS VDMs,
>but my 3c507 NDIS driver kills my modem, go figure!

NDIS is the standard network adapter interface under DOS, OS/2 and now Windows
NT.  There are MANY NDIS drivers available for the various cards, and surely
more to follow, since this is one area that IBM and Microsoft agree in!
As far as setup goes, have you ever tried NTS/2 (also called LAPS)?  It's
cake.  Click on your adapter, click on your protocol, and bang, you're done.
Very easy.

>>d) common tcp/ip programmes not or badly implemented (rsh does
>>not accept piped input or properly return stdout from the
>>executed command; ftp does not implement piped input/output for
>>get and put commands; etc).
>I wouldn't want to brag here because most of the free apps I
>distribute are pretty haphazzard.  My contribution was more
>a small TCP stack suitable for inclusion into other's programs, 
>like Kermit, WAIS, various 3270 emulation TSRs, several commercial 
>TCP applications, and embedded systems. 

>But I too have found the IBM supplied apps very crude and
>often broken (worst VT100/220 emulator I've seen, TELNETD
>crashes much more frequently and is less responsive than my own
>running under DOS!)

I can't vouch for what you're seeing on your machine, but as far as I'm
concerned, I've never had a problem with any of the Telnet clients getting
into my campus UNIX computers...

>>i) hard to setup (xenix tcp/ip took me about three hours from
>>openning the box to a reliable anonymous ftp service; wattcp took
>>about an hour from loading to basic operation; with os2, i'm
>>still at it weeks later).

>The reason why WATTCP, NCSA, CUTCP, KERMIT and most other free TCPs
>are so easily configured is simple - we authors don't want people 
>calling us asking how to get the software working and we don't
>want to have to document much - hence simple software.

>You might want to note that all the free software use ASCII config
>files, support some way to do include files so multi-station 
>installs are simple, easily support BOOTP, and seem to need
>comparatively little documentation to get you rolling.  This
>is not a boast but a reminder that TCP installation does not
>need to be the pain that it is under IBM's lable.

>Most commercial houses would do well to take a look at getting
>back to basics and putting the emphasis on the software and 
>ease of installation/use.

I'm afraid that I don't agree with you.  ICAT is a very easy to use
installation tool.  If you're setting up your own workstation, you're never
going to be able to get away from having to know SOMETHING about TCP/IP and
how your network is configured.  ICAT minimizes what you have to know and
organizes the information well.  It's certainly WORLDS better than what I've
seen on most UNIXs.  (BTW, if they can help it, IBM would prefer that you
didn't have to call them either to install software-- don't forget, every
one of those calls costs $$$).

>From a programmer's standpoint, I think IBM made a big mistake
>in their approach to reading/writing data to the tcp connection.
>Under OS/2 you quickly find that pipes, shared memory, 
>semaphores, queues, everything else maps wonderfully into the
>filesystem except TCP.  Do Novell's, FTP's, Essex's or anyone
>else's TCPs provide this support?  Everything else about OS/2
>makes BSD code relatively simple to support except TCP, someone 
>really goofed up IMHO.

That's true enough, and I agree with you that it'd be better if sockets
were integrated into the file system.

     - Andre Asselin (assela@rpi.edu)
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11588 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3667