GOSIP

networkingvendors & products

Government OSI Profile: a procurement mandate requiring OSI protocols in government purchases.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom used buying power to try to make OSI the standard, on the reasoning that a large enough customer can create a market. It did not work, and the reason is instructive: TCP/IP was already running, already interoperating, and already cheaper to deploy, while OSI arrived as a specification that vendors were still implementing. A mandate can compel purchase; it cannot compel a technology to be ready.

Also known as: government osi profile, us gosip, uk gosip

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