"End-to-end" paper

For those of you who have missed it, here

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/endtoend/endtoend.pdf+clark+end+to+end&hl=en

is the paper some of us mention, "END-TO-END ARGUMENTS IN SYSTEM DESIGN"
by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark.

The abstract is:

This paper presents a design principle that helps guide placement of
functions among the modules of a distributed computer system. The
principle, called the end-to-end argument, suggests that functions
placed at low levels of a system may be redundant or of little value
when compared with the cost of providing them at that low level.
Examples discussed in the paper include bit error recovery, security
using encryption, duplicate message suppression, recovery from
system crashes, and delivery acknowledgement. Low level mechanisms
to support these functions are justified only as performance
enhancements.

It was written in 1981 and is undiminished by the subsequent decades.

Nathan Myers
ncm(at)zembu(dot)com