[Standards] Namespaces, specifications, and protocol life cycles

[Dave Cridland]

On Tue Sep  9 17:04:32 2008, Jehan wrote:
> But there is a very interesting point also: currently a feature  
> never
> gives its version (as far as I can remember). You only have a  
> version
> for core XMPP (in the opening stream tag), but not for the  
> additionnal
> features inside the stream.

To make this useful, you'd need major/minor versioning - so 1.1  
implementations were safe talking to 1.5, but the 1.5 implementation  
would have to "talk down".

I did briefly contemplate suggesting this, before I realised that I'd  
never implement it in a million years, and the knock-on effect in  
terms of complexity of protocol design was so huge I'd never forgive  
myself.

So don't go there, really. :-)

FWIW, there is a version in XMPP like this, yes. There is also a  
version in MIME like this, which has remained at 1.0 for the past  
couple of decades, and similarly shows no intention of changing.

Dave.
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