Sidebar to Implemented OPLOCK for FreeBsd

[David Collier-Brown]

Greg Lehey wrote:
> I think we should be careful not to go too far in the opposite
> direction.  If nobody ever deviates from the standards, we get almost
> no progress (only when the committee can decide).

	This kind of bottleneck to change is solvable:
	I have a standard rant on the subject from my
	days as a Multician,  but it's too long... so

	To oversimplify, the relational database folks
	recognize this as a solved problem in computer science:
	they can always add things to a relation without
	breaking anything, and they have a mechanism
	for phasing things out, based on a distinguished
	value that behaves "correctly" when used by an
	old program.  This allows them to mutate relations
	to deal with change, without requiring all the
	programs in the world to be rewritten to the
	new interface (:-))

	Therefor: standards don't necessarily prevent
	progress, although standards-writers might want 
	it that way (;-))

--dave
[Otherwise I see you chaps as converging slowly on resolution..]
-- 
David Collier-Brown,           | Always do right. This will gratify 
Americas Customer Engineering, | some people and astonish the rest.
SunPS Integration Services.    |                      -- Mark Twain
(905) 415-2849                 | davecb at canada.sun.com