Weekly Routing Table Report

Wed Sep 4 01:37:43 UTC 2019

John Kristoff wrote:

>> If you can't accept the following principle of the End to End
>> argument:
> 
> I think it is better to stick with what the paper refers to them e2e as,
> an argument. The e2e paper is by far one of the closest things we
> have to network canon and its reasoning is exceptionally simple and
> compelling.  Yet, these are arguments, not laws.

Proof of the argument seems to be easy, see slide 11 of

	http://www.ocw.titech.ac.jp/index.php?module=General&action=DownLoad&file=201904901-2662-0-35.pdf&type=cal&JWC=201904901

> Even the original
> authors have revisited and questioned the original ideas.

Extension of the argument to intermediate systems (to make the
argument directly applicable to protocols used within a network
such as routing protocols) and modern layering (the original
paper is skeptical to layering stating "it is fashionable these
days to talk about layered communication protocols" obviously
because OSI layering popular at that time is terrible) should
be useful.

> Note, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any particular position
> about multihoming in this thread,

Can you agree that, by applying the argument to function of
multihoming, we can get the following:

	multihoming can completely and correctly be implemented
	only with the knowledge and help of the application
	standing at the end points of the communication system.
	Therefore, providing multihoming as a feature of the
	communication system itself is not possible.

then, the constructive question to ask is:

	with the knowledge and help of the application standing
	at the end points of the communication system, can
	multihoming completely and correctly be implemented?

Once the question is asked, it is not very difficult to
construct a multihoming architecture to show the answer is "yes".

With such questions, the principle is very powerful tool to know
the right direction to perform research.

 > just trying to argue that the e2e
> paper is a lot more nuanced than is often presented in debates
> especially since it has often been used to support opposing views.  :-)

The most serious problem with such debates is that people just
do not read the original paper:

	http://groups.csail.mit.edu/ana/Publications/PubPDFs/End-to-End%20Arguments%20in%20System%20Design.pdf

and have their own random definitions on the principle, which
makes the debates completely meaningless.

There are a lot of proofs saying the principle is invalid, using
their own definitions of the principle.

						Masataka Ohta