broadcast address

[stanonik at nprdc.navy.mil]

The subject of broadcast storms has come up again in another mailing list
(tcp-ip).  Sun still (sunos4.0.3) seems to distribute systems with 0 in
the host part as the default broadcast address.  Why?  Long ago the
internet community seems to have settled on all 1's in the host part for a
broadcast address.  True, if we don't like the default, we can ifconfig
broadcast address, but why does the default continue to differ from the
"standard"?

Thanks,

Ron Stanonik
stanonik at nprdc.navy.mil