[gopher] Gopher++ scrapped & Internet Archive -style thingy

[Kim Holviala]

On 2010-04-20 21:47, Mike Hebel wrote:

>> But, I need a way to do the opposite - I need a way for a client to
>> send extra data to the server in such way that old servers won't
>> break.
 >
> The only way I can see this coming about is the one thing you don't want
> to do - probe the server for identification and then keep the server
> state for that host+session. I can't think of any other way it could be
> done.

I think you're right...

Damn.

Now writing patches to old clients suddenly became really freaking 
complicated.

> seems to me there is a need for a simple, lightweight, easily
> configurable, easy to use, file serving method. FTP is a nightmare, SFTP
> is sometimes blocked by ISPs/netnannys, and bittorrent is actively being
> hammered into the ground as fast as the media companies can do it.

I agree. Unfortunately it's going to be HTTP, or maybe WebDAV.

> Now add to all this that we're getting closer to IPv6 where _everyone_
> has a public IP.

Hey, hey, I have that! So does everybody at my office, and they don't 
even know it :-).

> That means potentially everyone is a server. A modified
> form of Gopher could easily fill that role.

Gopher lacks stuff like file sizes and downloading ranges... HTTP does 
both which means it's going to be easier to implement.

I think just moving the gopher menu (type 1 document) over to HTTP 
protocol would be the easier than adding stuff to the goher protocol. 
But that doesn't sound good either...

... so I think I'll just work with what I have, and that's RFC1436.



- Kim