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End-to-end principle: Difference between revisions
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{{author|Lawrence Lessig}} lays out the concept very well in his magnificent {{br|Code: Version 2.0}}.<ref>Page 126, analog freaks.</ref> | {{author|Lawrence Lessig}} lays out the concept very well in his magnificent {{br|Code: Version 2.0}}.<ref>Page 126, analog freaks.</ref> | ||
{{quote|As I’ve already described, the Internet embodied this principle by keeping the functionality of TCP/IP focused quite narrowly—that is, on the single function best-efforts delivery of packets of data. What those packets do, or who they’re meant for, is not a concern of the protocol. Just delivering packets is the end. | |||
One consequence of this design, then, is that people can innovate for this network without any need to coordinate with any network owner. If you want to develop an application to deliver voice across IP, then all you need to do is to write the application to use the TCP/IP protocols to send data across the network in a way that will make your application run. | |||
This design embeds a value that encourages innovation in applications for the network. It does so both because it minimizes the costs of developing new applications (you don’t need the hassle of asking or clearing permission with anyone) and because it avoids strategic behavior by the network owner. | |||
Consider again the idea of developing a Voice-over-IP application. If the network is owned by the telephone companies, they would not be excited about an application that will cannibalize their telephone market. Thus, if permission were required before the VOIP application could be deployed, we might well expect the VOIP application not to be deployed—either because someone developed it, but it was blocked, or because smart developers knew it was a waste of time to develop it, because it would be blocked. As Susan Crawford describes, “The miraculous growth of the Internet has in large part come from the nondiscrimination against higher levels. . . . Innovators at the application layer have been able to assume the continued stable existence of the lower layers.” | |||
The value here is innovation and competition. The network empowers the widest range of innovators—users of the network—and entitles all of them to innovate for this network. Any innovation can be deployed on the network (so long as it respects the TCP/IP protocols). If users of the network like the innovation, then the innovation is a success. | |||
Simultaneously—at least so long as the e2e principle is respected—this design disables the potentially most powerful actor in the network, the network owner, from interfering with the opportunity for innovation within the network. The network owner might not like the stuff being developed, but e2e disables the opportunity to block that development.}} | |||
==Overview== | ==Overview== | ||
===Network layers=== | ===Network layers=== | ||