Re: [alto] Mandatory and optional in alto protocol

["Vijay K. Gurbani" <[e-mail]>]

On 10/24/2011 11:33 AM, Richard Alimi wrote:
> It is very important to realize the background for why the current
> services are defined as REQUIRED vs. OPTIONAL up until now.  It seems
> to be common belief that it was because one would be more useful than
> the other - that is not true. The rationale was that the OPTIONAL
> services can be *derived* from the REQUIRED ones.  That basically
> enables the caching ALTO Servers approach I mentioned above.
>
> I think it goes without saying that my personal opinion would be to
> make the maps services required, and the other services that can be
> derived from the maps service optional.  In the case of the endpoint
> property service (for properties other than "pid"), I don't think it
> matters much since providing properties beyond "pid" is optional
> already.  That said, we will certainly update the document according
> to whatever working group consensus says :)

(As individual).

I agree with NOT making all services optional.

In fact, during the Quebec City IETF, I had argued at the mic that
we should make all the services required.  We are essentially talking
about 5 core services, not tens or hundreds.

The bar to provide these services is low, and anyone offering a
production ALTO server will provide these services anyway (as a
case in point, during the bakeoff a majority of the servers provided
all of these services, not only the mandatory ones).

That said, if we do not make all the services mandatory, then I think
we should leave the Server Information and Map Service mandatory (as
it is now) and the remaining optional (since, as Rich argues, they
can be derived from the mandatory services).

Thanks,

- vijay
-- 
Vijay K. Gurbani, Bell Laboratories, Alcatel-Lucent
1960 Lucent Lane, Rm. 9C-533, Naperville, Illinois 60566 (USA)
Email: vkg@{bell-labs.com,acm.org} / [e-mail]
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