[tor-dev] Much-revised draft, RFC: removing current obsolete clients from the network

[Spencer]

Hi,

>> 
>> Nick Mathewson:
>> [This is a significantly revised version of the last
>> version of this proposal draft, sent here for comment.]
>> 

Questions?

>> 
>> The last version of this draft was
>> https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2015-September/009587.html
>> 

I asked some questions to this draft [0] that you may have forgotten to 
answer that still seem relevant; I have sniped them here.

>>> 
>>> Nick Mathewson:
>>> Draft proposal -- no number yet: How to safely drop
>>> support for old clients.
>>> 

I had made an observation about the title's "fluffy and not reflective 
of the proposal" nature and offered some options but I feel now like the 
current title still isn't as clear as it is intended to be.

'Current' suggests there are past or future clients that are being 
overlooked.

'Obsolete' suggests that the clients are no longer used or have fallen 
into disuse, which is quite a presumption given the encouragement behind 
"upgrading" that kinda forces people to show up as 
current-clients-in-the-wild data points.

I still recommend:
   - How to depreciate support for old clients

Though 'Network' is a valuable descriptor (:

>>> 
>>> Frequently, we find that very old versions of Tor
>>> should no longer be supported on the network.
>>> 

Where can we find research on the impact?

>>> 
>>> Disabling all versions that don't support this proposal
>>> 

With all due respect, doesn't Microsoft do stuff like this?  Is the 
impact so large that they require this level of action?

>>> 
>>> if we want to disable all Tor versions before today
>>> that do not support this proposal.
>>> 

Is the proposal for 5 years in the past, pre this version, or can/will 
the cutoff be specified willy-nilly?

>>> 
>>> It might be good to make any disable-switches advisory
>>> rather than mandatory.
>>> 

Ultimately, if this is the approach, and it is in the hands of each 
client operator, this will be good.  Though it would be great to hear 
from those who use previous versions to thwart limitations in "upgrades"
to Firefox, such as the way media is streamed, windows are re-sized, and 
so on (:

> 
> s7r:
> it'll take quite some time until we are ready to say
> 'let's disable all Tor versions before today'.
> 

How long do you think?

Wordlife,
Spencer

[0]: 
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2015-September/009601.html