[webkit-dev] Staging WebSocket protocol deployment

[Jeremy Orlow]

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 4:01 PM, David Levin <levin at google.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Jeremy Orlow <jorlow at chromium.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009, Jeremy Orlow wrote:
>>> >
>>> > I'm not very familiar with the IETF's efforts, but my understanding is
>>> > that they were creating a competing protocol.  Are they in fact
>>> creating
>>> > something that they want to submit as a replacement to WebSockets?  If
>>> > so, why is WebSockets moving to last call?
>>>
>>> The IETF is just a bunch of open mailing lists, there's no "they" that
>>> doesn't include us.
>>>
>>
>> Sorry I wasn't clear in my word choice.  I'm actually on one of the lists,
>> though I obviously don't follow it too closely.  :-)
>>
>>  The WebSocket protocol is pretty stable at this point. I doubt it will
>>> change much. The recent IETF meeting indicated that most people agree
>>> that
>>> we want something like WebSockets, and it has already received several
>>> years of public review.
>>>
>>> I wouldn't worry about changing the schemes or anything like that; if the
>>> protocol _does_ change in non-backwards-compatible ways, then we'll just
>>> change the protocol to not step on this code.
>>
>>
>> Just to be clear, you're saying that it's fairly unlikely that it's going
>> to change in a backwards compatible way?
>>
>
> He's saying if the protocol changes to be incompatible, then it will no
> longer be ws:, wss:
>

Yes, but once a browser ships ws/wss then we're stuck with that version of
the protocol.  If it starts to catch on, then browsers will need to
implement it for a very long time to come.  That's what happened with
LocalStorage.

By using webkit-ws/webkit-wss we're giving ourselves some wiggle-room until
we're sure we're happy with the protocol.  And I'm not convinced that we'll
know whether we're happy until we have some data from real-world use of
WebSockets.  (Which should start coming in soon after Chrome 4 ships.)


>  I ask because there's not much time left to make such decisions before it
>> goes into Chrome 4 without the "webkit-" prefix.  And once that ship sails,
>> there's not much of a point to adding it.
>>
>> J
>>
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>>
>>
>
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