> But in order to write an app that just passes on fields in a different > protocol, possibly with different data representations, it *has* to know > the type of the field. You're suggesting that even trivial protocol > conversion apps must know all about the freenet protocol. Thats > insane! If you give type hints in the fields, the app can pass fields on > according to certain rules, and can be far far simpler.
Why don't we just drop unknown fields? What we're talking about is a node that speaks two protocols and is translating between them. Most nodes will be talking to other nodes in the same protocol, with a few protocol translating nodes interfacing between homogenous clusters. I think it's fine if unknown fields are dropped during translation. This will mean that new messages that the node doesn't understand won't propagate properly through protocol gateways. It would be nice if they didn't, but it seems to me to be a minor problem as it will only occur when 1) There is a protocol translation and 2) the translating node doesn't understand the new message type. _______________________________________________ Freenet-dev mailing list Freenet-dev at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-dev
