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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: And then there were two
Why can't you have more than two 'equals'? Couldn't you have three 'equals' or four 'equals'? It would be just as difficult to maintain three or four _exact_ divisions as it would be to maintain two.From: Sean Donelan <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: And then there were two Date: 5 Jun 2001 17:16:13 -0700 If you accept the premise that "peer == equal" does that mean in the end there will be only two ISPs each with exactly 50% of the world's Internet because no one else will be an equal? The keyword is 'marketing' people. Aren't they the ones who always twist and exploit technical terms?I've never understood how the word "peer" mutated from its technical definition arising from its use in the BGP protocol to its use by marketing people. You're thinking about this too much. The backhoes must be behaving today! ;-)As far as I can tell, EGP (Exterior Gateway Protocol) originally used the term "neighbor." Berkeley used the berkelism "peer" in their software and RFC 911 documenting their experience, and the term stuck through EGP2, BGP1-4. If we still used the word "neighbor" would the phrase "Are you a neighbor?" have a different ring than "Are you a peer?" You can have lots of neighbors, even if you think you are superior to all of them. -rb _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
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