# Talk:Protocol Wars

I placed a notability template on this article. It may be notable (after all, I remember the issues and they seemed important at the time!) but it will need more WP:RS. At the very least it appears the article is misnamed. Only one of the current references mentions a "protocol war". That is ref 7, the Roger Scantlebury interview. The first three refs don't mention wars at all, and  refs 4, 5, 6 and 8 all speak of the "standards war" which seems a more appropriate title to me, but should probably contain a qualifier too, to show which standards war we are talking about. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

This topic is covered is several reliable sources and commonly known as the Protocol  Wars. It cuts across several existing articles and is currently not covered on Wikipedia. Let's  see how the article develops. Improvements welcome. Whizz40 (talk) 04:05, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Whizz40, per WP:DEMOLISH, I am indeed happy to watch how this develops, and indeed to help if I can. I won't be taking any precipitate action to undermine what you are doing, but I do think the title needs more thought. A rename is an easy thing to do at any time, so we should think carefully about what is the most approriate title.
You say the topic is commonly known as "the Protocol Wars". Although it is referred to by that name, my analysis of the sources you had yesterday was clear that "standards war" was the more common term, and is the one I would generally use. Protocols are part of the standards, of course, but they are not the only part. There is also a whole ideological war about the standards themselves, particularly at layer interfaces. Additionally, I am not sure this article should necessarily take the unqualified name "Protocol Wars" when there have been many protocol wars, both within the networking community and without. Another protocol war is described in a 2015 article in the IPJ, describing which transport layer protocols should be used in TCP/IP, and that article is titled TCP protocol wars. That is disambiguated from this article's topic by people generally referring to this as the  "Internet-OSI Standards War". That would be my preference for the page title, but if you think it is not WP:CONCISE then how about "Standards war (networking)"? I wonder if kvng (talk · contribs), as another subject specialist, might have a view? -- Sirfurboy (talk) 12:18, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
My question would be which WP:THREE reliable sources indicate notability of the subject. ~Kvng (talk) 14:31, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestions Sirfurboy and Kvng. Happy to go with consensus and cover this on the existing article, per Talk:OSI model#Protocol Wars, which may be brief as you say. If no objections I'll delete this article. Whizz40 (talk) 18:12, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
No objections to deletion. I did not object to keeping it either if you can establish the notability. Thanks. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
I hope I haven't been misunderstood. Mine was not a rhetorical or snarky question. I don't have a formed opinion about whether this is notable. I was requesting someone highlight evidence supporting notability; bthere are a lot of sources cited. ~Kvng (talk) 13:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
I too am happy to keep discussing if you wish. There was a standards war - I was just checking that (a) it was notable and (b) we are calling it the right thing. So  happy for you to withdraw the deletion if you wish, or we can allow deletion but maybe come back and try again to create the article in the future. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 14:21, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
There is some discussion of a standards war in OSI model and that is clearly the topic being covered by this article. My assumption at this point is this is a notable subject. I will find time later to do a WP:BEFORE-style assessment. If protocol wars is not the right title, we can always rename. ~Kvng (talk) 14:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Three sources for discussion: Whizz40 (talk) 15:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Andrew L. Russell (30 July 2013). "OSI: The Internet That Wasn't". IEEE Spectrum. Vol. 50, no. 8.
Russell, Andrew L. "Rough Consensus and Running Code' and the Internet-OSI Standards War" (PDF). IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.{{cite web}}:  CS1 maint: url-status (link)
"Standards Wars" (PDF). Student project at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington. 2006.
Thank you for these. Citations 1 and 2 are both very good, but they have the same author. Is there perhaps one more we can find? Sorry! -- Sirfurboy (talk) 15:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
See for example, case studies below. Whizz40 (talk) 16:09, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Esmailzadeh, Riaz (2016-03-04). Broadband Telecommunications Technologies and Management. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-99565-5.
Davies, Howard; Bressan, Beatrice (2010-04-26). A History of International Research Networking: The People who Made it Happen. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-3-527-32710-2.
"12.13 Interop (TCP/IP) Trade Show - September". www.historyofcomputercommunications.info. Retrieved 2020-02-05.
Ok, Riaz, 2016 does not seem to mention protocol wars or the standards war and the last ref is more of a passing mention, But Davies, 2010 has a significant section, and speaks of Protocol Wars (plural, stating there was more than one war). That is a good ref, but then it suggests something subtly different to the first three refs which are all focused on the OSI-Internet standards war. Should this article be about that standards war in particular, or about the protocol wars in general (which include the OSI standards war?)
As I said, the IEEE sources are good. Ideally we would have sources from different authors, but either of the Russell sources are good because the IEEE is a respected source and these are secondary sources. Wikipedia, as a tertiary source, prefers secondary sources, so I think they are good. Not sure if kvng (talk · contribs) agrees, but hopefully we all agree on that.
The paper from University of Washington is interesting. It is a student's final project. It is not clear to me the basis on which it is published though. Is this a submitted and corrected paper that the University published? Is it a sample project that they put up for student guidance? or is it published in some other way? A student project may contain errors, but the paper does do two things: (1) it supports the view that this subject is notable, and (2) it provides a bibliography so should lead to more sources (although whether those will be secondary sources is unclear).
So I think we are getting closer. Something does appear to be notable here, but we need to be clear on that question of whether this article focuses only on the OSI standards war or whether it is a description of a series of wars as per Davies, 2010.
Thanks again. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 20:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
My view would be to take a broader scope for two reasons, firstly to provide the context for the Internet-OSI standards debate and secondly to avoid the other aspects being left with no where to be included. See also discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protocol Wars‎. Whizz40 (talk) 23:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
One possible approach to get started, perhaps we can define an outline of the topic area and then identify the scope for this article and the article title? For example:
Standards in computer science
Protocol Wars
Internet-OSI Standards War
Open to other approaches as well. I'm still open to deleting this article on the basis the content is better covered in other articles to which it is relevant. Is there a concern this article will become unwieldy and poor quality, duplicating other content or orphaning content that would be better found on other articles to which it relates?  Whizz40 (talk) 08:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
It could be discussed in Internet protocol suite or OSI model but since it pertains to both, it would be hard to decide where and hard to avoid duplication. As long as we're happy notability requirements are met, I think it better to cover it in this separate article. ~Kvng (talk) 18:16, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Okay so thinking about the article title. I think what started as datagrams vs virtual circuits ultimately became the Internet-OSI Standards War. If the latter is the main topic and the former can be covered in the article as background then I can see no reason not to rename the article to Internet-OSI Standards War or something else. Any other views on the best article title? Along the way there were pioneers (RAND, NPL, ARPA, CYCLADES) vs PTTs (X.25), Open (TCP/IP on Unix) vs proprietary (IBM and DEC), US DoD/NSF/NASA/DoE (TCP/IP) vs Europe (X.25), IP over X.25 vs either/or, culminating in Internet-OSI (including the US Dept of Commerce supporting the latter). Whizz40 (talk) 08:53, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I think that is a good plan. Thanks. — Sirfurboy (talk) 09:13, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
I would leave the title alone for now and concentrate on developing the article. When we're happy with the content, it should be clear whether the title needs to change. Changing the title once is not a big deal. It can get messy if we end up changing it multiple times. What we have now is a good working title. ~Kvng (talk) 18:21, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Made a start, welcome editing from others and views on quality and approach. I am short on time and there is plenty to cover but if anyone thinks it is heading in the right direction and wants to help improve and put it up for DYK then please do (might just make the criteria with input form others, started on Feb 5th or 5x expansion). Whizz40 (talk) 11:48, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
Initial edits to the article are done. If anyone has any suggestions for how to incorporate the images mentioned in the DYK discussion below please do let me know. Whizz40 (talk) 07:18, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
Great work. I will have a read and come back with suggestions as appropriate. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:24, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, you put the article up for AfD instead of speedy in error. No big issue. AfD takes a week but otherwise it should be uncontroversial. If you want a speedy deletion, the following tags need to be placed on the page, replacing all the page content with these:
{{Db-g7}}, {{Db-author}}, {{Db-blanked}}, {{Db-self}}
As this is an author request deletion, I don't think I can do it (the Db-self template not being correct for me), so if you want a speedy deletion, just paste those onto the page. Thanks, and thanks for all the new information at History of the Internet too. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 11:25, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Let's finish the discussion above before deleting. ~Kvng (talk) 13:47, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

06:35, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth:, @Kosack: Thinking about the images discussed on the DYK nomination, I plan to be bold and add these based on fair use rationale. I should be able to do this tonight before if goes on the main page, but Cwmhiraeth, happy if you can move it back in the queue to allow time to do this and for a review. My plan for developing the article is to get plenty of readers and editors looking at it when it goes on the main page and I think the images may hold people's attention on the article for longer. This might bring out some edits about aspects that I had not anticipated or read about because it is a broad topic that covers many years. With this and images added, I am thinking about working towards GA. Whizz40 (talk) 10:07, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

The first image used in this article is under discussion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2020 February 29#File:Datagrams vs virtual circuits 1975.jpg. Whizz40 (talk) 09:36, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, probably not, but what does PTT stand for? Standard style would be to define it on first use. Public Telephone and Telegraph? Telegraph? Surely the Protocol Wars did not involve Morse code? IAmNitpicking (talk) 14:46, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Defined it in the opening sentence of that section as incumbent telephone companies (PTTs). Whizz40 (talk) 17:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
So it is. (Postal and telegraph?) IAmNitpicking (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
This wording has been further improved and clarified by Guy Harris. Whizz40 (talk) 09:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to Whizz40 (talk · contribs) for providing a very good article looking at this aspect of Internet history. This has grown far quicker than I expected, thanks to the Whizz40's efforts. I have read through and provided a copy edit, explained in the edit summary. Nothing major, and I am not precious about the words I added to the lead - please revert or change those as you see fit. My thoughts about the article at this stage are as follows:

The lead can now be expanded a little to make it clear what the actual war was about. The detail is in the history, but the majority of readers will only read the lead and scan the remainder, so summarising the key debate might make sense;
The history is all good stuff but takes a while to find any actual war. Perhaps the battles shuld be more prominent (but it is there - I like the addition of the Vint Cerf T shirt recreation image illustratibg that; and
On reading this, I still feel that the key battle ground is probably the Internet/OSI standards war, so I still think that may be the better article name, but would value the thoughts of other editors. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Done 1 - expanded the lead. Thinking about 2 and 3. Whizz40 (talk) 09:38, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

On 2, added an image from Computerworld magazine in 1975 highlighting the "battles" and tweaked the wording in places in the article. On 3, created a redirect from Internet–OSI Standards War. Whizz40 (talk) 07:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

It would seem appropriate to mention SNA as well as the other xNAs such as DNA, BNA, etc. Peter Flass (talk) 12:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

SNA is mentioned twice in the article, along with DECnet and XNS. The history of SNA is covered at SNA § History. In terms of this article, what are the summary points we want to include on SNA and the other proprietary standards? Whizz40 (talk) 14:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Mentioned propriatary standards in the lead. Whizz40 (talk) 09:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Expanded on this point in the body of the article. Whizz40 (talk) 10:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Mentioned in the Legacy section as well. Whizz40 (talk) 20:10, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
I consider the article overly "internet" centric, neglecting packet switching networking done in the Mainframe World, starting at least with the IBM System/360 and the accompanying IBM 270x Communication Controllers. --Poc (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
This isn't the packet switching article, it's an article about the battle between the Internet protocol suite and the OSI protocol suite, both of which were not vendor-specific protocol suites, with vendor protocol suites, including but not limited to IBM's SNA, being of lesser relevance to the article's topic. Guy Harris (talk) 18:09, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Mentioned SNA in the lead. Whizz40 (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

01:00, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

DECNET for at least one of the 4.1c BSD variants exists "in the wild". ("varient" as in tapes with a "4.1 BSD" label sticker on them can have different contents as 4.1* BSD appears to have been some sort of "rolling release") 
The DECNET code is also in the BSD SCCS version control archives Those SCCS archives were converted to the fossil version control system and available on online at Files in sys/deprecated/netdecnet/. Note that the "deprecated" directory is where it ended up after being in a "current" directory back in 1982. The same DECNET code is available on the CSRG ISO #1 in the directory 4.1c.1/sys/netdecnet. -- Jamplevia (talk) 01:53, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I got as far as building a working RA81 disk image with 4.1c.1 BSD, a version that is really a backup tape of source code. I grafted the source code onto binaries from a newer version of BSD and then downgraded the binaries by recompiling them. All the executables including the kernel are authentic in that they are the result of compiling the source code. However, configuration files like /etc/passwd are not authentic because they aren't on the backup tape.  The result has the DECNET source code in /sys/netdecnet but I have yet to get that to compile.
The resulting RA81 image, suitable for SIMH is available on the IA here, Run 4.1c.1 BSD based on the CSRG ISO. -- Jamplevia (talk) 09:54, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

In an article on protocol wars, missing to clarify conspicuously that the NPL Davies' model was datagrams and that of Khan for ARPANET was virtual circuits, would AFAIAC be missing a major information. In order to deal with your concern that the caption shouldn't bee too technical, I will delete the "connectionless" and "connection-oriented" mentions (likely to be less explicit for many readers than "datagrams" and "virtual  circuits" in the context of the two major packet switching models). From that, please discuss what you wish before just deleting what I find appropriate for a good quality article. RD2017 (talk) 10:52, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Looks good, thank you. Whizz40 (talk) 22:02, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Inviting the views of other editors - my view is this new content is detailed, specific to one of the standards and not essential to understand the competition and collaboration between them. Per WP:Summary style, I moved this to the X.25 article, based on WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and WP:Onus. Whizz40 (talk) 22:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The datagram vs virtual circuit confrontation (DG vs VC) has been in my understanding one of the summums of the "protocol wars". Understanding this confrontation requires IMHO to know (a) how and why operators of the public packet switching networks of the 80s unanimously chose VCs for the CCITT X.25, (b) how and why DARPA chose DGs for the TCP/IP of the Internet, (c) and how and why the IETF Internet overwhelmed in the 90s the worldwide X.25 network.
Agreed, the text I proposed for (a) deserves to be improved and preferably shortened, and at least some of its substance is welcome in the X.25 article.
Yet, some coverage of (a) remains IMHO necessary in this article. If other’s comments don't object too much, I envision working again on the subject.
--RD2017 (talk) 09:18, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
This article doesn't need all of the information added about the process through which point a came about. It's too much detail for readers who already have plenty to get through on this topic. This article already has a paragraph describing how "the X.25 standard was agreed by the CCITT in 1976" and an image of the main contributors, both in the section on TCP vs CYCLADES and INWG vs X.25. For readers who are looking for more detail on how that came about, we can provide a link to another article, per WP:Summary style; or, if the topic is notable, then a new article could be started covering that topic. Whizz40 (talk) 15:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Point b is already covered in the first three sub-sections, Packet switching vs circuit switching and Datagrams vs virtual circuits, and TCP vs CYCLADES and INWG vs X.25; it's mentioned in the captions of the first two images, and further covered in the section DoD model vs X.25/X.75 vs proprietary standards. In addition, point c above is already explained in the article, including a quote from Abbate's book in the section on Internet protocol suite. Whizz40 (talk) 17:02, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
The article now has a WP:hatnote linking to X.25 § How the CCITT standardized virtual circuits. Further details on this aspect of the hsitory can now easily be found there by readers. Whizz40 (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

One of my recent contribution tended (a) to find and include direct references when available, (b) to prefer freely reachable references to those that need to spend money to read them, (c) for each assertion, to limit the number of references to what is enough to be convincing (readers' time is precious).
To cover Whizz40's point that a reference to the (well-known) seminal TCP paper of 1974 doesn't per se proves that it is indeed seminal, a reference to the first TCP standard RFC (i.e. RFC 793 of 1981, freely accessible) is IMHO largely sufficient for this (it says “TCP is based on concepts first described by Cerf and Kahn in [1]”). 
To legitimate the next sentence of the article, i.e., “The paper drew upon and extended their prior research, developed in collaboration and competition with other American, British and French researchers”, the quotation of the paper itself I had selected is IMHO appropriate and sufficient: "The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations”. 
Whizz40 (by mistake I suppose) replaced it with a longer citation containing irrelevant text, namely '... [6] R. Despres, "A packet switching network with graceful saturated operation," in Computer Communications: Impacts and Implications, S. Winkler, Ed. Washington, D.C., 1972, pp. 345-351.)'.
I plan to improve again the article on these two points.
--2A01:E34:EC18:8A90:2474:9C82:6198:B395 (talk) 16:21, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. On your first point, RFC 793 would perhaps be considered a primary source. Per WP:RS, reliable secondary sources are preferred. Therefore, I restored these to the article. On your second point, I have made this change in the article. When I get time, I'll add links to the key primary sources in the References section. Whizz40 (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your latest edit. I made a further edit to improve the referencing without changing the content of your edit. Whizz40 (talk) 11:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)