See <URL:http://www.diamondmm.com/shotgun/>
I was checking this out, and I was struck by something which to me stinks
of a political decision.
It looks like Shotgun is basically MP for modems with DBA - but the DBA
is provided by Ascend's MP+. This was developed 'in cooperation with
Ascend'.
Why? Why base a new system on a protocol that has utterly failed to be
embraced by the industry, when there is a *STANDARD* for this - RFC 2125
BAP/BACP. If Diamond used BACP they'd have a wider support base on access
servers and ISPs. BACP has been a standard since March 1997 and widely
known in draft form since long before. Yet they picked a proprietary
system like MP+. I just can't see how that is in the best interest of the
users, or the ISPs. To me it stinks of X2 vs K56flex - want to offer this
service to users, by 3Com/USR servers. Only now it'd be Ascend servers.
Since it hasn't appeard yet, folks might want to write to Diamond and/or
the press that has covered Shotgun, and encourage them to support open
standards. Proprietary things on the backend don't bug me - the ISP can
use them or not and most have one type of HW anyway for ease of management.
But things like this only confuse the end user market and make for more
headaches for ISPs, and in turn for other vendors. I can't see any
justification for this decision.
-MZ, speaking only for myself, and rather pissed at Diamond
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