Re: HTTP/2 and no-longer "experimental"

[Stefan Eissing <st...@greenbytes.de>]

> Am 31.05.2017 um 17:46 schrieb William A Rowe Jr <wr...@rowe-clan.net>:
> 
> I have the impression that the developers still believe HTTP/2
> proxy is still 'experimental' / work-in-progress. Notably, there is
> a large pile of duplicate functionality in the modules/http2/ tree
> which should already be promoted to httpd util commons, so
> one copy of these duplicated functions are shared by both
> mod_http2 and mod_proxy_http2 (as well as potential http/2
> enhancement modules).

The developer of all this agrees that mod_proxy_http2 should stay experimental.
I would even recommend to remove mod_proxy_http2 from 2.4.x, until someone
finds time to address the problems reported. It works well for me, but some people
observe large transfers not working on Windows, for example.

> I have the impression that mod_http2 implementation in 2.6 is
> already cleaner and more maintainable, owing to enhancements
> Stefan already contributed and those parts of the implementation
> that httpd 2.4 had subpar support for... leading to various bits of
> bubblegum and twists of bailing wire, which are harder to maintain
> without the 2.6 API fixes.

FYI: I can also assure that code between trunk and 2.4.x is identical
except ap_create_request(), introduced in trunk, that was never back-ported.

My stance on mod_http2's experimental status is that I do not really
have an opinion. People seem to have more time and energy available, 
the farther away from actual code the discussion runs. Which is contrary 
to how I operate.

So:
> Am 31.05.2017 um 14:07 schrieb Jim Jagielski <ji...@jaguNET.com>:
> 
> There was discussion some time ago about dropping the "experimental"
> tag from our HTTP/2 implementation. It is causing loads of people
> to not use it, as well as allowing for the perpetuation of FUD that
> httpd really doesn't support HTTP/2.

What could a change of "experimental" do?

- A. It could address the FUD. Which I assume is important for market shares. 
And for people who have done serious investments (successful ones) in httpd 
in the past, be it money or time.

- B. People come out and say: "when experimental is gone, I might finally 
find the time to improving HTTP/2 support with the great ideas and/or long 
time experience that I have!"


On A, I am not interested. I will neither promote nor disapprove any change 
there. I just does not matter to me, personally. But if you want to talk 
about B, I am all ears!

Cheers,

Stefan

PS. Merit: the following people, beside myself, have contributed to 
the HTTP/2 efforts (to the best of my and svn praise memory):

- Yann did much work in analyzing crashes and made fixes
- Jim did the original import and added conn_rec* master
- Graham (minfrin) added ap_create_request() to trunk
- jfclere and jchampion did some code formatting/cleanups
- rjung added forgotten APLOGNOs
- jailletc and elukey worked a lot on the docs
- many, many people tested

Thank you!

Re: HTTP/2 and no-longer "experimental"

[Eric Covener <co...@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jun 1, 2017 at 7:10 AM, Jim Jagielski <ji...@jagunet.com> wrote:
>>
>> - B. People come out and say: "when experimental is gone, I might finally
>> find the time to improving HTTP/2 support with the great ideas and/or long
>> time experience that I have!"
>>
>
> There is that as well... it's no good having a substantial module
> with very, very limited expertise shared and involvement.

I don't really think developers are sidelined by this directly, but
maybe indirectly by the adoption reduced by A).

-- 
Eric Covener
covener@gmail.com

Re: HTTP/2 and no-longer "experimental"

[Jim Jagielski <ji...@jaguNET.com>]

> On Jun 1, 2017, at 4:40 AM, Stefan Eissing <st...@greenbytes.de> wrote:
> 
> What could a change of "experimental" do?
> 
> - A. It could address the FUD. Which I assume is important for market shares. 
> And for people who have done serious investments (successful ones) in httpd 
> in the past, be it money or time.

Not so much market shares, for market share reasons, but simply
that people who could and should be using httpd for http/2 simply
aren't. It's a blocker to having more people use it, which means
less bug reports and less feedback on fixes, etc...

> 
> - B. People come out and say: "when experimental is gone, I might finally 
> find the time to improving HTTP/2 support with the great ideas and/or long 
> time experience that I have!"
> 

There is that as well... it's no good having a substantial module
with very, very limited expertise shared and involvement.