From: CAnet-NEWS@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: August 25, 2004 7:09:42 AM PDT
Subject: [news] Areas of future Internet research and evolution
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[Here is an excellent document that discusses what ongoing research is
needed to further the evolution of the Internet infrastructure, and
that
consistent, sufficient non-commercial funding is needed to enable such
research -- BSA]
Title: IAB Concerns and Recommendations
Regarding Internet Research and Evolution
Author(s): R. Atkinson, Ed., S. Floyd, Ed., IAB
Status: Informational
Date: August 2004
Mailbox: iab@xxxxxxx
Pages: 30
Characters: 78250
Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso: None
I-D Tag: draft-iab-research-funding-03.txt
URL: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3869.txt
This document is a product of the Internet Architecture Board.
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not
specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
..... a key issue in funding for Internet research,
which is that because no single organization (e.g., no single
government, software company, equipment vendor, or network operator)
has a sense of ownership of the global Internet infrastructure,
research on the general issues of the Internet infrastructure are
often not adequately funded. In our current challenging economic
climate, it is not surprising that commercial funding sources are
more likely to fund that research that leads to a direct competitive
advantage.
The principal thesis of this document is that if commercial funding
is the main source of funding for future Internet research, the
future of the Internet infrastructure could be in trouble. In
addition to issues about which projects are funded, the funding
source can also affect the content of the research, for example,
towards or against the development of open standards, or taking
varying degrees of care about the effect of the developed protocols
on the other traffic on the Internet.
At the same time, many significant research contributions in
networking have come from commercial funding. However, for most of
the topics in this document, relying solely on commercially-funded
research would not be adequate. Much of today's commercial funding
is focused on technology transition, taking results from non-
commercial research and putting them into shipping commercial
products. We have not tried to delve into each of the research
issues below to discuss, for each issue, what are the potentials and
limitations of commercial funding for research in that area.
On a more practical note, if there was no commercial funding for
Internet research, then few research projects would be taken to
completion with implementations, deployment, and follow-up
evaluation.