Subject: Re: inter-communication

From: Tony Skjellum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:24:32 CDT

Lyndon, the issue is that if we followed the "old" model of intercommunication,
then the context attribute would allow some communicators to be set with
stronger security than others.

Specifically, intra-communicators would have contexts marked as "closed"
and inter-communicators would relax these semantics.  Thus, the users
desiring intercommunication could sacrifice the security of guaranteeing
that their messages come from within a known group.  The suggestion is
mainly aimed at the current draft's idea of inter-communication.  I have
not had opportunity to study your newest stuff with Tom.

I will go ahead and make contexts opaque.  As I indicated, one wants to 
allow some association (in specific implementation) with "ports" or other
things.  I propose that these be implementation-specific alliances, that
we do not cover in MPI.  

The greater good of this chapter, and of MPI, requires the additional
safety posed by making contexts opaque, and as you two agree (and are
the only ones giving me feedback), I will make it so.

Thanks for all your efforts.  I will strive to have the document worked
up with your final inter-communication ideas by August 5, for early
review by our colleagues at-large.

- Tony

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