- What was the protocol war?
- Why the protocol wars have significance over current WEB3 projects.
- Thesis of winner-takes-all protocol.
- What was the protocol war?
Long running computer science debate known as the Protocol Wars, occurring in 1970s to the 1990s. Engineers, organisations and nations become polarised over the issue of which communication protocol would result in the best and most robust computer networks.
This culminated in the Internet-OSI standards war, which was ultimately won by the Internet by the mid-1990s, and other protocols as a result disappeared.
The DoD developed and tested TCP/IP during the 70s in collaboration with universities and researchers in the US. By 84, an international reference model known as the OSI model had been agreed upon, which TCP/IP as not compatible. Many governments mandated compliance with the OSI model, and the US DoD planned to transition away from TCP/IP to OSI.
Meanwhile, the development of a complete Internet protocol suite by 89, and partnerships with the telecommunication and computer industry to incorporate TCP/IP software into various operating systems laid the foundation for widespread adoption of TCP/IP as a comprehensive protocol suite. While Osi developed its networking standards in late 80s, TCP/IP came into widespread use on multi-vendor networks for internetworking and as the core component of the emerging internet.
Overview:
- The Internetting project was an objective to develop communication protocols which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple linked packet networks.
- The system of protocols which was developed over the course of this research effort became known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and Internet Protocol (IP).
- In 86, US National Science Foundation initiated development of the NSFNET, which today provides a major backbone communication service for the Internet. NASA and US DoE contributed additional backbone facilities in the form of the NSINE and ESNET. In Europe, major international backbones, such as NORDUNET and others provide connectivity to over one hundred thousand computers on a large number of networks.
- Why the protocol wars have significance over current WEB3 projects.
We believe that there is valid reason to assume that a similar trend is occurring within the blockchain sector. In other words, currently there are thousands of differentiated blockchain projects (18,000+ different projects to be exact) within the realm of WEB3 & cryptocurrencies. All of these different blockchain solutions propose differentiated methodological approaches towards innovative news ways to scale and achieve an aim.
Undoubtedly, some of these new innovative blockchain solutions have utility however, the majority of blockchain & cryptocurrency solutions are likely to be unsuccessful. To add to this, the importance of identification of the valid protocol is of upmost importance. This is because, we believe that all organisations that build projects on top of a blockchain, must take into consideration the utility and superiority of that specific chain, in comparison to others chains. There is an evident danger that products or organisations that are built on top of one specific blockchain are at the mercy of the overall utility of that specific blockchain. To explain more coherently, we believe that in consideration of the likely potential that certain blockchains in the future will be recognised as inferior to alternative solutions, there is a danger that products built on top of these inferior protocols will become inferior too.
