Re: [mcp-negotiate] spec and implementation Qs...

[Erik Ostrom <eostrom@research.att.com>]

Richard Godard wrote:
>What do you mean by 'to block'?

"to block on" means approximately "to wait for".  dave, i think "block
on" is too... idiomatic here and should be changed before we finish.
i think "wait for" works.

>>This permits an implementation to "prefer" some packages over others
>>which support similar, but more limited, functionality.
>
>Couldn't this lead to some deadlock where each host wait for the other to
>send the list of the packages it supports before to reply (according to its
>preferences?)

well, the intent was that both implementations send out a list of all
packages they support immediately after the mcp version is
negotiated.  preference is something that's handled implicitly or
negotiated by a protocol outside the scope of this spec.

i think we had wording indicating that you must not block on receiving
#$#mcp-negotiate-can messages before sending your own, but vijay
suggested that we couldn't enforce it and therefore shouldn't spec
it.

hm.