From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-02-ewr.dyndns.com (mxout-068-ewr.mailhop.org [216.146.33.68]) by lists.bufferbloat.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2780E2E0182 for ; Sun, 6 Feb 2011 08:15:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from scan-01-ewr.mailhop.org (scanner [10.0.141.223]) by mail-02-ewr.dyndns.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id ACB0573F747 for ; Sun, 6 Feb 2011 16:15:42 +0000 (UTC) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 () X-Mail-Handler: MailHop by DynDNS X-Originating-IP: 76.96.30.80 Received: from qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.80]) by mail-02-ewr.dyndns.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20B9873F72E for ; Sun, 6 Feb 2011 16:15:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta03.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.27]) by qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id 4gCL1g0020b6N64A8gFhgx; Sun, 06 Feb 2011 16:15:41 +0000 Received: from [192.168.1.119] ([98.229.99.32]) by omta03.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id 4gFe1g00c0hvpMe8PgFfQA; Sun, 06 Feb 2011 16:15:40 +0000 Message-ID: <4D4EC92A.80001@freedesktop.org> Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 11:15:38 -0500 From: Jim Gettys Organization: Bell Labs User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101208 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net References: <20110206154236.64AF720C22E@snark.thyrsus.com> In-Reply-To: <20110206154236.64AF720C22E@snark.thyrsus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Bloat] Letter to CACM? X-BeenThere: bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.13 Precedence: list List-Id: General list for discussing Bufferbloat List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 16:15:45 -0000 On 02/06/2011 10:42 AM, Eric Raymond wrote: > Last night I had dinner with Drs. David and Paula Matuszek, two rather > distinguished CS academics who happen to be old and close friends of mine. > (They have occasionally joked about putting a brass plaque in their living > room, which back in 1996 was the very first place the ideas that became the > theory of open source were spoken outside of my skull.) > > Dave and Paula had just about the reaction you'd expect to my > explanation of bufferbloat - initial bogglement followed by oh-shit > followed by "how did we possibly manage to miss this?" > > Elapsed time from boggle to full comprehension was less than 5 > minutes. This is encouraging. Yes, they're exceptionally bright, and > yes, I'm exceptionally capable at doing this kind of exposition; still, > it's a good sign that they got it so fast. > > They had a useful suggestion. They think we ought to ship the overview > as a letter to CACM. "Everybody gets that," they pointed out. > > Yeah, I can see it. Getty, J., Raymond, E.S., Taht, D. "Packet Loss > Considered Helpful" OK, I kid about the title. > > I'd have to strip out some of the babytalk about road networks, but I > could do that in a hot minute. Once we get the overview content final. > > Should I put this shipping to CACM my to-do list for when the overview > is done? Jim, especially looking for your judgment; you'd be the > obvious designee for lead author even if the alphabetical order didn't > fall that way. There are a number of other publication venues already under way: 1) I'm writing Vint's next column for IEEE Internet Computing; draft was supposed to be finished yesterday, but I was feeling crummy and also preoccupied with other personal matters (including lots of snow). Hopefully, I'll finish that today or at worst tomorrow, now that I'm feeling OK again (I've got it about half written this instant). That is/will be a < 1200 word introductory piece toward that audience. I have permission to use it on bufferbloat.net (though I don't think the IEEE will want it to go into other publications). 2) Vint has also suggested a SIGCOMM note to CCR. I haven't taken any action on that front. The point is it is a fast turnaround publication without having review cycles, and oriented toward more opinion pieces. 3) I'm presenting at the Transport Area meeting at the upcoming IETF in Prague in late April. I have 30 minutes (plus questions), so have to do serious surgery on my existing talk. I don't know the deadline on those slides yet, but suspect they will be due by around the end of the month. 4) ACM Queue is doing a major push on this; there is a case study that has just started preparation. This will consist of a: o interview of a number the key players in the uncovering of bufferbloat and expert on congestion with Vint interviewing (e.g. the Netalyzr folks, myself, Van). o a number of papers surrounding it, probably including RED in a different light, (so people don't waste time trying to make RED work in wireless, and to ensure nRED is out there), a paper I'll pull together out of what I've written, but I need a TCP and network guru to co-author with me to make sure I get it technically right. Probably a piece by Peter Bosch, who has debloated a 3g home gateway product we have in engineering, which provides a wonderful before/after debloating case study, and maybe a couple of other pieces we batted around, like for major core network operators, when they should worry about bufferbloat and when they shouldn't... This is aimed sometime in May/June time frame; Would be stupendous if we could get a home router behaving itself with SFB and/or nRED in time and written up, but that looks dicey at this date just due to timing; we'd have to have something running by mid-April. So at this point, I'm worried about writing bandwidth, and want to make sure the efforts go in the right directions for best impact. Dave Clark pointed out to me early on there is another audience we need to ensure "get it": that is the more hardware oriented engineers you find in the IEEE. The managers of the hardware giblets need to understand it's something they have to worry about in the design of the hardware and firmware, and these guys are usually the people who pay the bills for the firmware/software that is developed. If they don't "get it", it won't get done by the software/firmware getting done right in their products. I think Dave's right. So, in short, I think we have the ACM/CACM well in hand already; I'm much more worried about the other hardware oriented audience represented by the IEEE. Suggestions of how to approach that audience are welcome. - Jim P.s. I'll follow up with a different note on a related topic net.