8.5 Friendly Name
The 'name' attribute of the service discovery <identity/> element
enables a responding application to specify the "friendly name" for
its node. However, this attribute is excluded from the hash
generation method, primarily because it is human-readable text and
therefore may be provided in different localized versions. As a
result, its inclusion would needlessly multiply the number of
possible hash values and thus the time and resources required to
validate values of the 'ver' attribute. However, a receiving
application MAY send a service discovery information request to a
particularly JID+node combination in order to determine the
friendly name, then cache the result for that JID+node only.
Gr. Having email issues this morning. This is a reply to Kevin's
desire for new text.
<suggestion>
However, a receiving application MAY send a service discovery
information request to a particularly JID+node combination in order
to determine the friendly name, but if it does so then it MUST cache
the result for that JID+node combination.
</suggestion>
I really wanted to cache just based on the node, but "there's an
attack!" for people poisoning others' client names. I don't think
that's really a concern, but perhaps that is over-practical.
I think caching based on JID+node kind of misses the point, since
you'll then end up still with a flood of disco requests for any client
where the users want the client version information. As was noted in
one of the previous rounds of XEP-0115 discussion, many users get up-
in-arms about not being able to see that information. Hence the
iq:version floods of old. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't someone
mention earlier in the thread specifically that when they took out
version queries from a client in particular (I want to say it was
Kevin talking about Psi), users howled bloody murder?
If we can only store the friendly name on a per-JID basis, then I
would be willing to lay down money that user-demanded features will
once again effectively have a 'flood' of discovery requests of some
form, in order to have a friendly name to display.
--
Rachel Blackman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Trillian Messenger - http://www.trillianastra.com/
