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Time: 18:00ish GMT on 2023-12-31
Venue: ##misfin on libera.chat
Participants:
An informal discussion re the future of Misfin protocol, given the apparent absence of the originator ("Lem"). The meeting is without prejudice to any future governance arrangements for the protocol.
This doc will be updated as the meeting proceeds.
It was proposed, but definitely not yet accepted, to break backward compatibility by providing content length thus:
"misfin://<MAILBOX>@<HOSTNAME><TAB><CONTENT-LENGTH><CR><LF><MESSAGE><CR><LF>"
counterproposal:
18:33 <@clseibold> So, if we're breaking back-compat, and we want
content-length to be optional, then I think your proposal is
that we add a tab to tell the server that there's a
content-length coming, and if there's not, then we could
just use a space. So here's my tweaking of your proposal:
18:33 <@clseibold> With Content Length:
misfin://<MAILBOX>@<HOSTNAME><TAB><CONTENT-LENGTH><SPACE><MESSAGE><CR><LF>
18:33 <@clseibold> Without Content Length:
misfin://<MAILBOX>@<HOSTNAME><SPACE><MESSAGE><CR><LF>
19:39 <@mk270> (this can make the detection of end-of-message more reliable / easier to implement for those with weak TLS libraries)
resolved nem con: to go with the counterproposal of optional length
proposed for 16K
(it is proposed to reword the spec to clarify how the header interacts with gemtext, without changing the semantics of misfin)
18:01 <@clseibold> So like, all we're really doing here is dividing the message
body from the header format.
18:01 <@clseibold> To demonstrate:
18:01 <@clseibold> ---- misfintext header here ------
18:01 <@clseibold> > sender
18:01 <@clseibold> < receiver
18:01 <@clseibold> ---- gemtext body below here ----
18:01 <@clseibold> [gemtext body]
18:01 <@clseibold> Same format as what we currently have, we just divide and
use different parsers for the two sections
(see below in next section for actual agreed proposal)
was proposed by jmjl - how to implement?
ban commas from email address tags
exclude metadata from content length
20:28 <@clseibold> Here's my proposal for changing the misfin linetypes: 20:28 <@clseibold> address1 sender1_name, address2 sender2_name 20:28 <@clseibold> recipient_address1, recipient_address2 20:28 <@clseibold> timestamp1, timestamp2
A conversion tool can be provided for users of the old metadata format
we should mandate that all new clients require the content length?
But all servers have to handle when there's no content length
yeah - the server is allowed to accept old metadata if the client sends no contentlength
but new clients must send contentlength
can be based on a hash of the senders, recipients and body, ignoring timestamps.
A server can calculate this. No need to change the wire format.
This is not going to be done immediately, but is for future ongoing discussion.
clseibold's misfinmail, reference implementation, cipres' fork, and gemalaya browser
clseibold's misfin-server, reference implementation, cipres' fork, miselfin, Dory, and I think there's a few other servers too.
The original Lem spec is under a CC licence:
https://git.sr.ht/~lem/misfin/tree/master/item/COPYING
It was agreed that our document should include this by reference rather than inclusion, and be a "proposal" rather than any kind of usurpation.
The draft ID will be: e82fa2e9-a8e9-44f5-924c-77301643f5c2