Re: [Monotone-devel] netsync flag day justifies bumping version number to 1.0

[Ludovic Brenta]

Timothy Brownawell <address@hidden> writes:
> On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 20:24 -0500, Timothy Brownawell wrote:
>> I'm now thinking we can make the about-to-be-released clients work with
>> current-version servers. If they see an earlier-version hello from the
>> server, they just need to store that in the session and use it for all
>> packets sent. The only actual difference would be the cert data packets,
>> and which hashes to use during cert refinement (would have to store both
>> old and new hashes in the db).
>> 
>> I'll see if I can code this up later this week or this weekend.
>> 
>> In the future, the server would also have to recognize earlier versions
>> in the auth/anonymous packets and adjust itself accordingly (easy, since
>> server/client use almost exactly the same code).
>
> This is done. New-version servers can also talk to old-version clients,
> they now start with usher_cmd (which the client ignores the version of)
> instead of start_cmd.
>
> So we now have full protocol version negotiation between 0.44 (and
> earlier) and 0.45dev (and future).

Wow, I'm really impressed.  The monotone community is really amazing and
I'm proud to be part of it (as the sponsor of the package in Debian and
as a strong supporter, not as a developer).

However I'd like to better understand how old and new monotones are
compatible (or incompatible) WRT the new key hashes.  Could you explain
what happens when:

- a new client sends certs to an old server?
- an old client (belonging to another developer) gets those certs from
  the server
?

i.e. how does the old monotone see the certs and how does it interpret
them?  If there are any user-visible effects, I think they should be in
the user's manual.

> ...do we want to call it 1.0 due to caring about compatibility now?
> *ducks*

If the compatibility is good, there is no need for a major version
number bump and no need for you to duck.  On the contrary you should
stand proudly and let everyone else bow in reverence :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.