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Re: inquiry re. the state of protocol R&D

2014-05-26 21:18:48
I have to vehemently disagree. To me, APIs are a step in the wrong direction.

Protocol specs - framed as PDU formats and state machine models - present a basis for interoperability and distributed operation. APIs are language-specific, and all too often are tied to a centralized/client-server model of the world. A big step backwards.

Miles Fidelman

Carlos M. Martinez wrote:
A world of APIs is a good thing. As long as the APIs are public and well
documented and, well, standardized.

I believe this is an evolutionary step. After you get a solid foundation
of interoperable IP and transport protocols, the next logical step is to
standardize APIs.

What lies behind the API is bound to be propietary, IMO.

cheers!

~Carlos

On 5/24/14, 1:24 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:
Hi Folks,

For a while, it's been kind of bugging me that the Internet ecosystem is
increasingly a world of API's tied to proprietary systems - quite
different than the world of interoperable protocols.  Sure, every once
in a while something new comes along - like RSS and XMPP, but that's
more at the fringes - and in a lot of cases we see attempts at things by
folks who really don't have a clue (open social comes to mind). (And, of
course, very specific things like, say DMARC.)

Obviously, a lot of this is driven by commercial factors - there's money
to be made in centralizing systems and monetizing APIs; not so much for
protocols.  And it seems like there isn't a lot of R&D funding for such
things.

Which leads me to wonder - is there much of a protocol r&d community
left - academic or otherwise?  IRTF seems awfully narrowly focused - and
mostly at lower layers of the protocol stack.  Where's the work on
application protocols (beyond refinements to HTTP, and web service
stuff)?  Are there still funders for this kind of work?

If so, where do folks "congregate?"  For programming languages, there's
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/, conferences like OOPSLA, and there
seems to be a steady stream of academic papers.  Is there anything left
like that for protocol R&D?

Miles Fidelman



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra

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