Linux kernel design patterns - part 3 [LWN.net]

Linux kernel design patterns - part 3

Posted Jun 23, 2009 10:25 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)
In reply to: Linux kernel design patterns - part 3 by aleXXX
Parent article: Linux kernel design patterns - part 3

> It's called _inter_net because it can transfer data not only within one network, but between multiple networks, i.e. inter-network wide.

That is my point.

> What it can run on doesn't really matter here.

It does because if it were a rich, (too) demanding layer 3 then it would not have been able to go through any network technology. This is explained all across the literature. Googling for 2 minutes already finds one instance:
http://www.isoc.org/tools/blogs/ispcolumn/?p=49
¨By offering an unreliable asynchronous packet delivery service, or datagram service, IP assumed a lowest common denominator of network functionality, and maximized the number of different types of networks that IP could utilize.¨

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