[gopher] Updated Gopher RFC

[Nick Matavka]

On 19 May 2012 14:29, Nuno J. Silva <nunojsilva at ist.utl.pt> wrote:
> On 2012-05-19, Wolfgang Faust wrote:
>
>>> >> Yes, that is exactly what I intend.  I have a working draft on Google
>>> >> Docs, and you can edit it as you please, but don't leave editorial
>>> >> comments on Docs (trying to keep it RFC-like).  If you want to talk
>>> >> --- actually talk --- about it, I have an IRC channel that we can talk
>>> >> on.
>> Where's the Google doc? I have one too, at
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yodrJvmflZIkqWAp5HC162bxMDe7IU2oC7KLBhRIbPE/edit
>> but I'd like to see what you've got.
>
> Is there any chance you can allow other people to add some kind of
> comments to the document?
>
> Or you prefer to get comments through email or IRC?
>
> Anyway, here I go, despite my rather limited knowledge of The History of
> Gopher:
>
> Regarding itemtype 5, you say
>
> ,----
> | Binary file
> | Note: The original RFC defined this as a DOS binary file.
> | TODO: What is the difference from selector 9?
> `----
>
> My guess is that the original plan was to split binary files (possibly
> executables) by operating systems, so you have the generic selector 9
> and also:
> - 4 for Macintosh
> - 5 for PC-DOS/MS-DOS
> - 6 for UNIX
>
> So that clients could ignore files that would not run or be usable on
> their platforms.
>
> Now, uuencode is a tool used to send binary files through e-mail
> messages in UNIX systems (which was, of course, probably more common
> back in the days MIME support wasn't as widespread as nowadays), and the
> same is probably also the case with BinHex and Macintosh.
>
> The RFC authors probably adopted those for that reason, maybe in an
> attempt to avoid 8 bit content in Gopher (both BinHex and uuencode are
> tools that convert binaries (8 bit) to plain-text ASCII (7 bit)).
>
>
> Of course, I may be wrong.
>
> --
> Nuno J. Silva (aka njsg)
> gopher://sdf-eu.org/1/users/njsg
> http://njsg.sdf-eu.org/
>
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Add or change anything that you feel like, but please do not put
constructive criticism (where I'm good and where I need to change) in
the main body of the document, put it at the end, where there are
short-form notes.

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