Bob writes:

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100 engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which is half our problem.

Actually, there has been some work done on this. There was a NSFNET Trouble Ticket standard developed by the RAC. The report is available as a pdf file from this URL: ftp://ftp.academ.com/pub/misc/troublet.pdf. Unfortunately, shortly after this work was done, the NSFNET ceased to exist.

So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?

I'd like to encourage you to discuss this issue specifically. I am writing an Internet-Draft on end-system management issues in the face of the explosive growth of the Internet and this is one of the ones I am writing about. Your views would be most welcome in developing this document. -- Stan | Academ Consulting Services |internet: sob@academ.com Olan | For more info on academ, see this |uucp: {mcsun|amdahl}!academ!sob Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.