Peerage versus Peering

Sat May 3 13:37:09 UTC 1997

> From: Peter Lothberg <roll at Stupi.SE>
> Look up ''peer'' in a dictionary, in this context it means something
> like ''networks of equal size''.
>
This silliness comes up every so often, not always from non-native
English speakers.

Peer actually means several unrelated things.  One of which (the first
definition in my Webster's) is a member of a body called "the House of
Lords" -- noblemen....  This comes from the Latin for "equal", yet is
distinctly not equality.

Although it seems that there are some who desire to apply that usage,
that certainly is not what the rest of us are talking about here!

The 5th definition is the one which I understand to apply: any associate.

> The internet is moving towards a scenario with a handfull global
> players that will be ''peers'' everyone else will become a customer.
>
As a matter of network engineering, this Internet has not historically
established a peerage, a heirarchy of "first among equals".

TCP/IP (and PPP and every other protocol I've worked on in this
environment) establishes "peer-to-peer" connectivity.  A peer is merely
any entity with which you have established communication.  More
prosaically, someone with whom you "look closely".

Where this term comes from, to quote the dictionary, is "entymology
uncertain".

WSimpson at UMich.edu
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BSimpson at MorningStar.com
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