And if the terminology really is the most important contribution of OSI -
I think that this is amusing, ironic, and instructive all at the same
time.
It's amusing and ironic because of the huge amount of effort that went to
developing and promoting OSI. It's instructive because it demonstrates
that even something as simple as a well-thought-out taxonomy can be
really beneficial.
keith - i think you're pretty close to damning with faint praise here, and
you don't realize it. in high earth orbit, i can certainly agree that the
high-level terminology was useful. in terms of any practical perspective
though, the terminology is meaningless without an architecture, and the OSI
architecture isn't all that helpful.
for example, one of my favorite OSI acronyms is "IONL", which stands for the
internal organization of the network layer. ISO actually produced a standard
on this. why? well, because in the OSI architecture, you had to accomodate
both CL and CO network (sub)layers. this is simply not workable or even
rationale.
so, if the statement is that the OSI architecture was so general that it
could accomodate every possible existing and future architecture, i guess
i'd agree, but before doing so, i'd ask what's the point?
/mtr
ps: many of us still use "router" instead of "intermediate-system" and
"host" instead of "end-system", so i guess i have to question just how
useful all that OSI stuff really was. (other than giving me the opportunity
to write several books ten years ago poking fun at it...)