[tor-dev] #15060: Decide the fate of MyFamily / prop242 better families

[Nick Mathewson]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 8:56 AM, Nusenu <nusenu at openmailbox.org> wrote:
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> Hi,
>
> I like prop242 [1] because it doesn't "Nuke MyFamily" [2] but replaces
> it with a better approach. "Better" in terms of scalability and
> maintainability.
>
> I don't know of any current 'tools' (except the tor client itself)
> that use MyFamily data but Virgil's [3] gamification website and
> compass group-by family feature [4] would depend on it.
>
> So before spending time on features that depends on an uncertain
> descriptor field, it is probably better to wait till the fate of that
> property (MyFamily) has been decided.
>
> The reason for this email is to find out when that fate will be
> decided upon? (expected answer: before tor 0.2.7.x-final is released)

I don't know that we have a date here, or a consensus that it ought to
be done.  Whether any changes happen in 0.2.7 here is going to depend
on whether we've got a solid answer one way or another on the question
of MyFamily.

So, what do we think?  I'd say that MyFamily is likely to continue to
serve a useful purpose, and that removing it entirely would be
premature given how often people come up with fun new routing and path
selection and guard selection ideas.

On the other hand, prop242 is a fair bit of work to do, and I don't
know whether it will rise to a high enough priority over all the other
stuff we need to do.  And who knows, maybe somebody will come up with
a solid argument in favor of removing MyFamily entirely?  It's worth
thinking about.

yrs,
-- 
Nick