[mythtv] Protocol negotiation?

[Paul Bender]

Michael Tiller wrote:
> It seems like every time there is an update to MythTV, it creates havoc 
> with all other clients.  In my case, I have a MediaMVP and an XBox 
> running XBMC but the issue also exists because when trying to run MythTV 
> on Xebian as well because some people (like me) prefer to have prebuilt 
> distributions and those often lag significantly.
> 
> I'm curious...wouldn't it be possible to have the MythTV backend 
> negotiate which protocol to support?  In that way if it ran across an 
> "old" client that wanted protocol level 30, it could say "OK, I'll talk 
> to you with 30" insteady of throwing protocol errors.
> 
> I suppose since the current protocol doesn't support this kind of 
> handshaking we'd have to bump the change the protocol thereby 
> (temporarily) exacerbating the situation. :-)  But it seems like a good 
> way to go in the long term because then it wouldn't force you to update 
> all clients at the same time.
> 
> Just a thought.

 From experience, I can tell you that it is often a lot of effort to 
make sure that older protocol versions still work when you extend or 
replace protocols. I would much rather MythTV developers spend time move 
things forward than looking back.

Afterall, there is no requirement to upgrade. If part of someone's 
MythTV system cannot be upgraded right away, then the person can wait 
until it can. I often do this with other systems.