Selfish routing

Sat Apr 26 20:13:59 UTC 2003

I find it odd that the reaction of nanog readers to the paper title
is as though the paper said the opposite of what it does.  In brief,
the paper's says that under certain assumptions the globally optimal
latency would be only 25% better than the selfish result.  That's
actually a very pleasant conclusion, as the globally optimal case
would require global knowledge and infinite computing capacity, neither
of which is available on any real network.

I read the paper as vindicating the existing architecture of independent
self-interested players rather than as wishing for central control.
That's certainly not how it was reported, or how nanog folks reacted.

-- 
Barney Wolff         http://www.databus.com/bwresume.pdf
I'm available by contract or FT, in the NYC metro area or via the 'Net.