On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 01:31 +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote: > On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Ross Burton <r...@burtonini.com> wrote: > > On Mon, 2009-05-18 at 22:39 +0300, Stefan Kost wrote: > >> Now that apple has closed the whole bonjour stack, I would prefer to build > >> on > >> upnp. We have gupnp, which is actively developed and fitting nicely here. > > > > I'm very curious as to what this "closing" of the bonjour stack is: even > > if they closed their Bonjour implementation the specifications are > > public (interestingly the Internet Draft expired yesterday): > > > > http://files.dns-sd.org/draft-cheshire-dnsext-nbp.txt > > > > Whilst I'm a maintainer of GUPnP and think it's the best solution we > > have for interoperating with other UPnP devices (of which they are many > > in the wild), I really do think it's an ugly specification which hasn't > > had any recent development. I also notice that Windows Vista includes > > something I've forgotten the name of which they basically call the > > successor to UPnP... > > > > The two technologies are pretty different. > > > > mDNS gives you name resolution and by extension (via cunning use of DNS) > > service lookups, i.e. "what printers are here". At this point it stops > > caring and you use application-specific protocols: XMPP for link-local > > chat, IPP/HTTP for printing, and so on. Generally mDNS is used to > > announce an existing service, such as the location of an existing IPP > > print queue, or SSH server, or HTTP server. Because mDNS doesn't care > > what you do after discovery, security is not it's problem. > > > > UPnP doesn't do name resolution, but does do service discovery. > > Introspection of services and invocation of remote method calls is also > > part of UPnP, invocation is done via everyone's favorite RPC protocol, > > SOAP. The UPnP specifications cover a large number of services > > (internet gateway devices, media servers, scanners, printers, security > > cameras, lighting and so on) but I've only ever seen IGDs and media > > servers in the wild. Security is non-existent, any process (including > > Flash in a web page) can make UPnP calls and (say) open ports on your > > router. > > > > Personally speaking, if you want to do basic service > > announcement/discovery and you already have a good protocol which works > > (say HTTP or XMPP) then I'd recommend starting with mDNS. If you want > > to interoperate with existing devices (such as routers and media > > servers) then using UPnP is the only solution, because I don't know of a > > mDNS equivalent for the IGD magic and Apple are working very hard at > > stopping you from using DAAP/DPAP on a Mac. > > > > This mail turned out to be a bit longer and rambling than I was hoping, > > but the executive summary is this: at present, both are required, > > depending on the situation. > > Why are we discussing UPnP vs mDNS? Isn't it like discussing USB vs > Firewire? Ideally both should be supported.
This entire thread is not about what we should be capable of interacting with. It's about what we want to present to third-party developers as our platform. Say a game developer comes along and wants a way for his game to find other instances of itself on the local network. What are we recommending? I don't have all the answers to these questions. -- Shaun _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list