Towards a Protocol-Independent Internet Transport API

The conjoint API of TCP, UDP, UDP-Lite, SCTP and DCCP has a large number of choices and is quite complex. By requiring an application to specify the name of the protocol to use, it also constrains the implementation of the Internet's transport layer. We propose to provide a common API that only offers the services that application programmers need to see, and we show how its design could be undertaken, ending up with an API that we believe is much simpler than the alternatives in use today. We also argue that this would be a very good way to get new transport protocols widely deployed.