The chatty approach for the avatar data transfer was intended as a
security feature to add explicit delays to the transfer and prevent
amplification attacks among authenticated friends. This was deemed
unnecessary in the code review and, therefore, replaced by a simpler
approach that sends all data in a single burst.
Support for other formats was deemed unnecessary in the code review
and therefore removed. The value for the constant TOX_AVATARFORMAT_PNG
is now set in stone; if the other formats become needed again in the
future, this commit shall be reverted and the enum values reordered to
keep compatibility.
Add a protocol and the APIs to straightforwardly support user avatars
in client applications. The protocol is designed to transfer avatars
in background, between friends only, and minimize network load by
providing a lightweight avatar notification for local cache validation.
Strict safeguards are imposed to avoid damage from non-cooperative or
malicious users and to limit network usage.
The complete documentation is available in docs/Avatars.md and sample
code is available in testing/test_avatars.c.
Code and documentation are released under the GNU GPLv3 or later, as
described in the file COPYING.
