Re: audio/video again

[Paul Ferguson <pferguso () cisco com>]

At 05:53 PM 8/5/96 -0700, Michael Dillon wrote:

> Maybe we could get an RFC that requires screensaver type applications to
> have a standalone mode that works with stored data and require user
> overrides in order to initiate video or other data feeds. Maybe it could
> also require that video and data feeds automatically shut down if there is
> no user interaction within a specified time period. Kind of a higher level
> view of the smae kind of timing specs that make TCP work.

Hey, don't mess with my Pointcast!  ;-)

Sorry to name specific products here (lots of folks specifically point
out cisco, so what the hell), but in the specific case of Pointcast,
there *is* a knob which controls the time-frame between updates. This
is, in my opinion, the Right Thing to do. Once they get the compression
stuff working and make it available, it will help lessen the impact of
thousands of these clients clogging the network getting update data.

In any event, I like getting my stock quotes if I'm away from my machine
for a few hours. Sure, there are ways to make it more efficiently (such
as geographically dispersed servers, compression, et al), but I don't
believe this is an example of a misbehaving application.

Perhaps an FYI RFC on application behavior is not such a Bad Thing, but
it would certainly be a controversial document.

- paul

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