[AFS3-std] RxOSD claim on 2 structure members

[Steve Simmons]

On Jun 11, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Simon Wilkinson wrote:

> On 11 Jun 2009, at 20:18, David Boyes wrote:
>
>> So mark the ones you know of as "used by differing parties" and  
>> give the folks who want a new field a new one so things can  
>> actually progress.
>
> It's the lack of 'a new one' that is the issue. There are no free  
> fields in the RPCs we are interested in once you discard those  
> fields that are 'used by differing parties'.
> . . .
> That proposal requires that RPC changes (which in effect this is, as  
> it changes the semantics of a particular field) go through a  
> standardisation process that we're just getting off the ground. In  
> the future this means that there will be an avenue for those who  
> wish to register an unused field for their own use to do so.  
> However, the future isn't the issue - it's the past we have to  
> contend with. For many years, there has been a free for all on the  
> unused fields and bits in the AFS protocol. This means that any use  
> of them has to be carefully considered. I suspect that our only way  
> forwards is going to be to (as David H. suggests) revise the  
> protocol, and then make very clear that unused fields are not  
> 'spare', but 'reserved'.

I kind of like having two types of fields - some reserved, to be used  
for officially blessed things as we're discussing, and some  
specifically designated for local use. In this particular case there  
may not be enough fields/bytes to allow this, but we should at least  
keep the idea in mind.