Re: [hybi] method of allocation of reserved bits to extensions

[Brodie Thiesfield <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:04 PM, John Tamplin <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Greg Wilkins <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> The simplest solution is to say that the 3 bits (and spare opcodes) in
>> the framing are reserved for future versions of the protocol - ie off
>> bounds to all extensions.
>>
>> ....snip...
>>
>> The only outcome I'm strongly against is the status quo - where we
>> have a few scarce resources with no fair share mechanism defined.
>> This will just result in unfair market forces being used to make
>> defacto allocations of those bits (and opcodes for that matter).   It
>> is better not to have them than to have them with no fair share
>> policy.
>
> So why do you object to leaving it up to the definition of the first
> extension that wants to allocate a reserved bit?  At that point, it could
> define the dynamic allocation method you want.  It isn't like any one party
> can railroad through a standards definition allocating one or more of the
> bits.  I don't object to the idea, but I do not want to hold up the base
> spec, which isn't going to define a use for these bits anyway, trying to get
> consensus on how they should be allocated (though personally my preference
> is a registry rather than the complexity of dynamically allocating them).

Then making them reserved and off-limits to arbitrary use by
extensions, and requiring the use of the IANA registry is your
preference as well?

> It sounds to me like you are saying "if I can't have it my way, nobody can
> have them".  If they can't ever be used for extensions, it isn't entirely
> clear what they could be used for, so we would be better off just allocating
> them to the opcode than leaving them unused.

If they are registered it doesn't mean they can't be used. Just that
the extension that uses them must be blessed with the registration.
All other extensions just add a byte to their payload and use it for
their flags.

Regards,
Brodie