Re: xPLLib v3.0 Public Beta

["Mal Lansell" <mlansell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John B" <home-automation@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_xpl@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 7:56 PM
Subject: [ukha_xpl] xPLLib v3.0 Public Beta
> ** Built in xPL Hub **
>
> I guess the question is: Do we want any app to be able to act as a
hub, or
are we happy with the present situation where the user specifically
designates an application to act as the hub.
> It has always been the view of the xPL team that there should be only
one
app that can act as a hub on a computer at once, so that
> end-users receive consistent results.
> What are people's views on this?
>

Personally I prefer simplicity.  I'd not have any xPL app attempting to
provide hub functionality at all (including xPLHal).  The hub would be a
stand-alone bullet-proof application/service.  There would be no issue of
transferring control or incompatible versions - you would install one hub
on
your PC and that would be it.


> ** Security **

> The question is: Do we go for "secure by default", and ask
users to
specifically enable reception of xPL messages from their network, or do we
stick with the present approach where it all works out of the box, but you
are expected to have a firewall.
>

I'm not sure this is even an issue.  There can't be many people who have
firewalls (other than the WinXP one) between the PCs on their LAN - usually
it would be between one machine and the rest of the internet.  I'd imagine
that all such firewalls would have the xPL ports blocked by default anyway.
The problems that people *have* had are due to the WinXP firewall - that
would still block messages whatever approach we take.