Re: protocol enhancements

On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 04:52:32PM +0000, Torgeir Veimo wrote: 
> What is the problem with a new protocol, where the rendering model is
> not part of the protocol (which is really how the protocol should have
> been in the first place), or a direct rendering windowing system, with
> optional protocol support, as long as there is a backward compatible X11
> module, which can accept connections at port 6000?
> 
> One can put up protocol compatibility as a very high priority, but
> allways starting a reply to someone wanting to work on server internals
> with: "It's possible to do this without breaking the protocol...".

If you change to a shared lib, instead it will be "it's impossible to
do this without breaking the library ABI"

You have to keep old apps working. Changing the rendering model will
*always* break old apps, unless done in an extensible way. It doesn't
matter how your interface is expressed, protocol or ABI.

A protocol is a much better-defined way to express an interface than a
library ABI, and as such is in fact easier to avoid breaking, in my
experience.

Havoc