Ali Khayam <ali_khayam@yahoo.com> writes:
> "UDP Lite" is a variation of the traditional UDP
> protocol that has been tailored for high-error rate
> networks with low processing power nodes e.g. wireless
> networks. "UDP Lite" happens to be my area of research
> right now.

This sounds... strange I must admit.

I read the URL you sent. It has this idea that UDP isn't good enough
because it won't give you damaged packets and some applications would
be happy enough getting packets with partially corrupted data. They
therefore specify a new protocol that doesn't do a data checksum.

This is rather weird. It seems to be based on several completely
incorrect assumptions. First, there is the notion that that UDP must
always do a checksum. That isn't true. If the sender sets the checksum
to zero, it means, in the existing spec, that you aren't to do a
checksum. Of course, none of this is useful anyway. In practice, all
our link layers discard damaged packets long before they get to you.

The rest of what I read seemed to indicate other misunderstandings on
the part of the authors about what UDP can already do.

Anyway, I doubt any of this code will ever be mainlined in NetBSD. It
doesn't seem to have much of a purpose.

--
Perry E. Metzger		perry@wasabisystems.com
--
NetBSD Development, Support & CDs. http://www.wasabisystems.com/