At 03:55 PM 10/18/2002, Benjamin Krueger wrote: > One could also make a case for continuing to abide by the cardinal >rule "Be permissive in what you accept, and strict in what you send". >Tough call, but its difficult to justify describing stacks that are >permissive as "highly bogus" or "lazy" given that being permissive in >what you accept is an established notion. If a usage makes any kind of sense, then it has usually been allowed. >Compliant by the letter, if questionably in spirit. I'm not aware of any >tcp client systems that would send SynFin in the real world, so a stack >that responded with RST could arguably be "more" correct (for example). Not necessarily. Have you heard of T/TCP? Before that was around, I remember hearing discussion of using a packet with SYN, FIN, and data all in one, to cut down on round-trips in really short communications, while still providing reliability. One of the lessons you learn when writing / reading RFC material is that "there are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (or thereabouts). Just because _you_ don't see a use for a feature, that doesn't mean to say that someone else won't / can't, and specifically, it isn't usually worth limiting a protocol for the rather arbitrary reason that you can't see how a feature would be used. Alun. ~~~~ -- Texas Imperial Software | Try WFTPD, the Windows FTP Server. Find us at 1602 Harvest Moon Place | http://www.wftpd.com or email alun@texis.com Cedar Park TX 78613-1419 | VISA/MC accepted. NT-based sites, be sure to Fax/Voice +1(512)258-9858 | read details of WFTPD Pro for NT.
