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Chapter 3
Internet Governing Bodies
and the Standards Process
Standards are the glue that enables hardware and software products to inter-
operate. Without standards it would be difficult, if not impossible, for different
vendors to create products that could operate with products made by other
organizations. For the TCP/IP protocol suite, standards are developed by
several organizations that can be considered the governing bodies of the
Internet. Thus, the first section of this chapter concentrates on this topic. Once
this is accomplished, attention turns to the standardization process and the
relationship of different governing bodies to the publication ...