[xfer] Make consistent assumptions that xfer metadata can never be NULL
The documentation in xfer.h and xfer.c does not say that the metadata
parameter is optional in calls such as xfer_deliver_iob_meta() and the
deliver_iob() method. However, some code in net/ is prepared to
accept a NULL pointer, and xfer_deliver_as_iob() passes a NULL pointer
directly to the deliver_iob() method.
Fix this mess of conflicting assumptions by making everything assume
that the metadata parameter is mandatory, and fixing
xfer_deliver_as_iob() to pass in a dummy metadata structure (as is
already done in xfer_deliver_iob()).
Modify data-xfer semantics: it is no longer necessary to call one of
request(), seek() or deliver_xxx() in order to start the data flow.
Autonomous generators must be genuinely autonomous (having their own
process), or otherwise arrange to be called. TCP does this by
starting the retry timer immediately.
Add some debugging statements.
Do not hold self-references. This then avoids the problem of having to
ensure that we only drop our self-reference exactly once.
To maintain the guarantee that an object won't go out of scope
unexpectedly while one of its event handlers is being called, the
event-calling functions now automatically obtain and drop extra
references.