RE: Is MS preimplementing future WinSock features?

Joe Kiniry (kiniry@cs.caltech.edu)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 20:57:04 -0800


Joe Barrera writes:
> Note, the issue here is not actually "pre-implementing" of Winsock 2, but
> rather the back-propagating features from Winsock 2 into Winsock 1.1.

so they are moving some of the 2.0 api into 1.1. did they make this
fact public? i.e., if they did not and these features provide some
advantage, which one would expect they might given they are components
of a whole new rev of the library, isn't that slightly fishy?

> This story puzzles me. Winsock uses a versioning handshake so applications
> can dynamically detect and use the most up-to-date version of Winsock
> installed on the system. So what use would a back-propagated version of
> Winsock 1.1 serve? The app writer should just compile and link against
> Winsock 2, and fall back to 1.1 calls as necessary if the handshake to
> Winsock 2.0 failed. The Winsock 2.0 headers and libraries have, I believe,
> been shipping with Visual C++ since 4.0, and in the Win32 SDK for quite a
> while as well. They are also available from www.stardust.com.

versioning handshaking isn't unique to winsock. there must be some
other issue here if vendors like netscape are still compiling to 1.1
versions of the library. comments on this charlie?

> Note, BTW, that Winsock is just one of many open standards that Microsoft
> uses. Oh shit, I keep forgetting, "Open" really is just a code-word for
> "Unix". And even if Winsock started as just a clone of BSD sockets, the
> three characters "Win" invalidate any claims of openness that Winsock might
> otherwise have.

not at all. if i see support for any library, api, framework,
etc. across multiple platforms in a manner that promotes use and
excellence, i usually classify it as "open" whether the industry does
or does not. if i were to be able to compile bsd socket code directly
onto winsock i wouldn't make the distinction. the problem is, this is
not the case and thus one really cannot classify winsock as a
"standard" until such time that is adopted by non-microsoft
platform(s), wouldn't you say?

joe (the other one, the 1st, i guess)

> - Joe
>
> Joseph S. Barrera III (joebar@microsoft.com)
> http://research.microsoft.com/research/barc/joebar
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