It reported "N machines run an older host than another" by comparing
versions as strings. A host reports its version as a commit, and commits
have no order. On the live mesh it named the three machines running the
NEWER host as the ones behind — ced54d4 sorts above 04a27ca and that is
all it means.
The code even carried a caveat saying versions compare as strings and that
this "is enough for the timestamps and commits this mesh uses". That was
the error, written down and not noticed: enough for timestamps, meaningless
for commits, and the mesh reports commits.
It now reports the split and claims no ordering, which is more useful as
well as more honest — the reader sees who is on which side, and that is
what decides whether a field can be sent. Ordering is left with the host,
which would have to report something ordered for anybody to have it.
This is issue 145 arriving by my own door an hour after I closed it: a
report that confidently says the opposite of the truth is worse than one
that says less.
jschoubben
a794ef9a3f