Re: KITTEN BOF at IETF 60?

On Mon, Mar 22, 2004 at 10:28:29AM -0600, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> One thing I notice now is that the language of rfc2744 seems to make a
> distinction between recommendations for implementations and
> recommendations for platforms.  It seems that a single ABI for any given
> platform is desired.
> 
> I appreciate this but, how is an ABI to be specified for any given
> platform?  No mechanism is provided or discussed for reaching agreement
> on a given ABI for a given platform, so how could competing implementors
> agree?

In appendix B we find:

"
   Individual platforms will impose their own rules that must be
   followed to achieve link-time (and run-time, if different)
   portability.  In order to ensure either form of binary portability,
   an ABI specification must be written for GSS-API implementations on
   that platform.  However, it is recognized that there are some issues
   that are likely to be common to all such ABI specifications. This
   appendix is intended to be a repository for such common issues, and
   contains some suggestions that individual ABI specifications may
   choose to reference. Since machine architectures vary greatly, it may
   not be possible or desirable to follow these suggestions on all
   platforms.
"

So, is a common ABI for "link-time (and run-time, if different)
portability" a MUST or a SHOULD?  And whose burden is it to specify the
ABI?

Nico
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