🚀 go-pugleaf

This item appears on page 15 of the June 1987 issue of Data Communications.
It really made my day. Enjoy.

 --Phil

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For Own In-House Network, COS Selects TCP/IP

That's right. The consortium of vendor and user heavyweights, the
Corporation for Open Systems (COS), which exists solely to accelerate the
development and deployment of products based on the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) specifications, confirms that its own in-house
computer network will use the renegade transmission control
protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) set, and not OSI transport and network
protocols, at least not initially. "I realize it may look bad, but we *do*
plan to migrate [to the OSI protocols]," says Steve Smith, a COS researcher.
COS expects its in-house network -- consisting largely of Unix-based Sun
Microsystem workstations, Unix-based file servers, and Ethernet connections
supplied by Bridge Communications -- to be up and running within the next
few weeks. Aware that charges are likely to fly that COS isn't practicing
what it preaches when it comes to implementing OSI, COS officials declined
further comment. It seems the decision to go with TCP/IP -- even though
several COS members, including IBM, Retix, and Touch Communications, for
example, now offer OSI network/transport-layer products -- was made
reluctantly, because the vendors whose gear COS researchers wanted (Sun,
Bridge) do not offer OSI connections.  There could, however, be another
reason for the interim acceptance of TCP/IP: COS is long overdue in setting
up a test facility for checking out OSI network/transport product
implementations and certifying their intercompatibility. And selecting an
OSI product for use in its own network, which has not passed COS's own
certification muster, might have been viewed as an even bigger political
gaffe than going with TCP/IP.