[OTR-dev] Requirements for libotr4

[Len Sassaman]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Ian Goldberg wrote:
>
> The reason libotr treats a typed "?OTR?" as an signal to start/refresh
> the private conversation is that for some clients (iChat?) that may be
> the only way to do it.  There may be no UI in the client itself to
> control OTR.
>
> But I suppose we could make it an option.  If you've got OTR support in
> your UI, let libotr know that, and it will treat a typed "?OTR?" just as
> any other 5 chars.  [And maybe an option to treat "?OTR?" as the
> start-OTR command if you're not currently encrypted, but as regular text
> if you are, hmm.]

I'm not sure I like this -- I prefer to keep the responses to given user
input commands consistent across implementations unless there's compelling
reason to offer optional variation. (Having OTR-enabled clients choose to
display something other than "?OTR?" when they receive it doesn't concern
me, but I think that "?OTR?" should always work.)

(I'd argue that OTR-enabled clients probably *should* suppress the ?OTR?
string, to address the "reposting of transcripts" issue.)

I guess I'm okay with quoted "?OTR?" not triggering it (I.e., adding a nit
where ?OTR? does what it currently does, but "?OTR?" doesn't --
essentially adding a comment bracketing to the initiation protocol.)

It's my hope that this will become a non-issue, and that users won't have
to use the characters "?OTR?" in conversation anyway.

(It's not that this one new option proposal is a problem by itself, but
these things accumulate, and each one makes implementing the OTR protocol
that much more difficult.)


--Len.