> > If what you're saying here is that RDC doesn't support RFB
> > 3.8, then  the server is also at fault in the protocol
> > negotiation. I have no easy way to test this.
>
> If it supported protocol 3.8, it would work with viewers that request that
> version of the protocol, which it doesn't.
>
> > If you are going to insist that the server is broken, you
> > must update the specification not to have a constraint on
> > what version the client may choose.
>
> Why?  You appear to contradict this statement below.
>
> > I think the specification
> > is presently quite clear and sensible and that in the absence
> > of the user configuring some workaround the VNC 4 client
> > should be transmitting RFB 3.8 back to RDC. Then if it
> > doesn't work, RDC is at fault and a workaround must be enabled.
>
> VNC Viewer Enterprise & Personal Editions include an automatic workaround
> for servers that report non-existent version numbers of this sort.


In my view the key misunderstandings in my mail were (a) I assumed when you
originally said "the highest protocol number" that's what you meant, whereas
now you've clarified that the client chooses "the highest number less than
the given number unless it's an unrecognized number in which case the client
chooses a still lower number as a workaround". The behaviour as you've now
described it makes for a correct client. (b) I wrongly assumed that VNC 4
used a protocol version greater than 3.8 which your mail indicates it does
not. (c)  I presumed that the goal of writing about the error messages was
not to write literally what the error message already says, but to explain
to the user why the software is really giving that error message and help
them solve it.

On a and b I think we're now on the same page, and on c we can simply agree
to disagree. When the practical reality is that Apple's poor implementation
can be easily (and at zero dollar cost) be made to work, given some
explanation of the real cause of the observed behaviour, I consider it
useful to document that these messages really indicate a different
underlying cause than a plain software bug (namely that the software is
misconfigured at the moment and needs to be restarted). Whether we agree
about this point or not matters little; the objective that someone Googling
for these error messages will soon have a chance of finding this thread and
getting it to work without having to install software on some elderly
relative's Mac is achieved.

alex

PS and I can't resist, though I should know better: read it again:

>       The post to which I was responding involved connecting
> using a viewer
>       running on Windows XP to a server running Mac OS X -
> someone suggested
>       trying Chicken on the Mac, having misunderstood that
> the Mac was to be the
>       server, not the viewer.
...
No, I mean "the server, not the viewer".  The other system (Linux/Windows)
was to run VNC viewer, connecting to a server running on the Mac OS X
system.
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