The sideband demultiplexor writes the data it receives on sideband
with xwrite(). We can lose data if the underlying write(2) results
in a short write.
If they are limited to unimportant bytes like eye-candy progress
meter, it may be OK to lose them, but lets be careful and ensure
that we use write_in_full() instead. Note that the original does
not check for errors, and this rewrite does not check for one. At
least not yet.