mesh portal discovery

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

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Sjoerd Simons wrote:
> Activities need to cope with people coming going anyway. If your in a mesh only
> environment, the mesh can be split into two or more parts at any point and
> later on merge again. Salut will model that as people disconnecting and later
> on connecting again, your application _must_ be able to synchronize the shared
> state if needed in some way.

"cope" is exactly the right word.  It is simply impossible, in many cases, to
handle a mesh split without disruption.  For example, any code that creates a
distributed lock will fail if the group splits and rejoins.  If your Activity
uses this common structure, then there will inevitably be a major discontinuity
when the group rejoins.  I understand that mesh splits are inevitable, but every
effort should be undertaken to minimize their frequency.

>> If IP address switches are triggered automatically, and silently, then they
>> must be handled automatically, and silently.
> 
> That's mostly up to the application. Telepathy shouldn't hide the fact that
> we're not actually connected anymore and applications should do something
> usefull with that info. A better long term solution would probably to use
> mobile IP, so you don't get disconnected when switching between networks.

This is precisely what I am saying.  Telepathy should only register a disconnect
if there is no way to route between two XOs.  The mesh system should be designed
so that moving about within the mesh, or handing off between Salut and Gabble,
or switching from one internet-connected wireless network to another, does not
cause a Telepathy disconnect.  In each of these cases, the path between XOs
remains routable, with a gap of at most a few seconds.  I understand that this
is not easy, and that it will not be implemented immediately, but we should not
profess ourselves satisfied with anything less reliable.
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