[whatwg] Websockets: dropped packets? (Jonathan Chetwynd)

[Bob Gezelter]

Jonathan,

The WebSocket protocol currently presumes TCP as the underlying transport.

TCP connections are an uninterrupted stream. If a packet is lost, the
connection will be aborted.

I do not believe that the TCP dependency is truly necessary or beneficial.
WADR, it would be far more appropriate to specify the needed characteristics
of the underlying transport. As an example, the earliest versions of MTP
(RFC 772) -- the predecessor of SMTP have successfully taken this approach
to specification.

In a recent posting to my blog, Ruminations, I suggested that the WebSocket
protocol specification be segregated into multiple RFCs, to separate the
TCP-related implementation issues from the underlying protocol.

- Bob
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