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

[John Tamplin <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:18 PM, Brodie Thiesfield <[e-mail]>wrote:

> >> 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?


That isn't what Greg was suggesting -- he was saying they were not available
for extensions at all, but yes having a registry would be fine with me.


> > 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.
>

Again, that isn't what Greg was suggesting.

Also, if reserved opcodes can't be used (which Greg was also suggesting),
then there is no room for any experimentation, which seems a recipe for poor
progress getting useful extensions.

-- 
John A. Tamplin
Software Engineer (GWT), Google