[squid-users] HTTP2

[Alex Rousskov]

On 2/27/19 10:30 AM, Andrej van der Zee wrote:

> I understood that http2 is work in progress. 
> Is there anything to say about when this might be released? 

IMO, given the way the Squid Project operates right now, the correct
answer to that question is close to "hopefully not in the foreseeable
future": We cannot add quality HTTP/2 support right now, and adding some
hacky version of it would be disastrous for Squid stability, support,
and development. Combined with where the popular clients and origin
servers are going, it may be better to fantasize about HTTP/3 support
instead.

Based on Factory experience with adding HTTP/2 support to Web Polygraph,
I consider the following (partially overlapping) preconditions as
necessary for serious HTTP/2 (or HTTP/3) work in Squid:

  1. Proper QA infrastructure.

  2. Elimination of technical debt that prevents proper restructuring
     of HTTP/2-sensitive code.

  3. An agreement regarding overall HTTP/2 code architecture.

  4. An efficient way to accept huge code changes.

  5. A project lead capable, willing, trusted, and funded
     to orchestrate such a big change from beginning to end.

Right now, *none* of the above preconditions are satisfied.

There is slow but steady progress with #1 and areas of #2.

The situation with #3 and #4 is worse than it was a few years ago -- we
are wasting insane amounts of time on getting much simpler code changes
reviewed and accepted. Many changes require a rewrite before they should
be accepted (and some are indeed rewritten). Nobody can afford to
rewrite a pull request with initial HTTP/2 support!

We have nobody who can satisfy #5 criteria right now.


On 2/27/19 7:27 PM, Amos Jeffries wrote:

> If anyone wants to jump in and lend a hand my HTTP/2 work is up on 
> github. IMO the best tasks to collaborate on would be designing
> cppunit tests
Creating more unofficial code is a bad idea at this time IMO.

Alex.