So, I had a discussion with the RFB protocol maintainers at
RealVNC about getting the
new RFB security types – which I added in Vino for doing the
encryption thing – registered in the protocol. As far as I can
make out at this point:
-
There are more security types registered than appear in
the protocol specification. -
Security types 1-16 are reserved for “standard” security
types. -
A security type becomes “standard” when it is added to the
“reference implementation” … which just happens to be
the same product RealVNC is trying to make money from.
I can’t make up my mind whether I care about this or whether
I should just leave sleeping dogs lie. My main worry is what
happens if we decide there are other additions we want to make
to the protocol. Oh well, cross that bridge when we come to it.
The RealVNC guys are friendly, so I don’t expect there would
actually be problems.
In the end, we agreed that I had to use different numbers to
identify the new security types and I had to modify the way
the new security type actually worked. End result – I’ve just
pushed a new version of Vino with incompatible changes in the
protocol.