HTTP/2 & HPACK Specifications Approved

[phoronix]

Phoronix: HTTP/2 & HPACK Specifications Approved

The HTTP/2 and HPACK specifications have been formally approved by the IESG...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=HTTP2-HPACK-Approved

[Krysto]

Shame mandatory encryption is out. And only a year after the IETF almost unanimously decided that it's time to push for an "encrypt everything" Internet.

[Szzz]

We also need a replacement for TCP, it is old and inneficient. Google is working on QUIC which is promising.

[Krysto]

We also need a replacement for TCP, it is old and inneficient. Google is working on QUIC which is promising.

Isn't QUIC more of a replacement for UDP? CurveCP sounds very nice in theory, but I think there are some problems with it. There's also MinimaLT and Trevor Perrin's "Noise" (although that one is still very much in the concept phase I think):

http://curvecp.org - http://youtu.be/pNkz5PtoUrw?t=14m17s

http://cr.yp.to/tcpip.html

https://github.com/trevp/noise/wiki (discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744893)

[Szzz]

Isn't QUIC more of a replacement for UDP? CurveCP sounds very nice in theory, but I think there are some problems with it. There's also MinimaLT and Trevor Perrin's "Noise" (although that one is still very much in the concept phase I think):

http://curvecp.org - http://youtu.be/pNkz5PtoUrw?t=14m17s

http://cr.yp.to/tcpip.html

https://github.com/trevp/noise/wiki (discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744893)

Replacement for UDP? Why would one need to replace UDP, what is wrong with it? The only think I can think of is too small port space: only 65536 ports. If I'm developing some new network application I will need to select a default port but it may easily collide with other used port.

From the links you provided it seems that CurveCP and Noise are only for better encryption, not for solving other of the various TCP issues.

[carewolf]

We also need a replacement for TCP, it is old and inneficient. Google is working on QUIC which is promising.

SCTP..

Funny thing, it would also simplify SPDY or HTTP/2 since it has native multiple channels.

[Zan Lynx]

SCTP..

Funny thing, it would also simplify SPDY or HTTP/2 since it has native multiple channels.

A new reliable stream protocol has the same problem IPv6 is having. Getting people to support it.

It would be like the bad old days when you needed to install Trumpet Winsock in order to use the Internet.

[nslay]

A new reliable stream protocol has the same problem IPv6 is having. Getting people to support it.

It would be like the bad old days when you needed to install Trumpet Winsock in order to use the Internet.

True, but at least SCTP is flexible enough to be usable on systems that don't actually implement SCTP. For example, I think Windows' workaround is just abusing UDP to implement SCTP. Not ideal, but it's not like you need some kernel changes to use it.

Cool thing about SCTP is that you can switch on/off features as you need them. Heck, you can turn off all the features and effectively have what UDP is now...

[Lennie]

True, but at least SCTP is flexible enough to be usable on systems that don't actually implement SCTP. For example, I think Windows' workaround is just abusing UDP to implement SCTP. Not ideal, but it's not like you need some kernel changes to use it.

Cool thing about SCTP is that you can switch on/off features as you need them. Heck, you can turn off all the features and effectively have what UDP is now...

There is no workaround for no SCTP-support in the OS. (Windows does not support SCTP)

If you see a fallback to UDP, then that is the application doing that.

Some Operating systems support SCTP directly though. Usually they also support SCTP-over-UDP.

One of the reasons SCTP over UDP was introduced because of NAT or other firewalls, because many don't understand SCTP and thus block it.

'We', the Internet community, have a hard enough time just getting IPv6 deployed. SCTP is newer and just isn't going to make it.

If you are looking for a big deployment of SCTP, look no further than a browser. WebRTC uses SCTP for the data-channel support. The tunnel that over TLS over UDP (the encryption protocol of which previous versions where known as SSL and used by HTTPS and secure IMAP/POP, NNTP, SMTP, etc.)