[gopher] History and future of "the gopher project"

[James Mills]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2015 at 5:41 AM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>
wrote:

> > > Although I respect (and in some ways wouldn't mind) a central planning
> > > process for Gopher, I think that makes what is for many of us a fun
> sideline
> > > unnecessarily bureaucratic.
> >
> > This is a good point: bureaucracy shouldn't evolve!
> > But what could be bureaucratic? People could work/play on as they used
> to do.
>
> In that case, what would such a central approach solve? Perhaps I don't
> understand clearly what you're proposing. It sounded like a W3C-like
> consortium, and I think the W3C's drawbacks have become rather apparent.
>

Being quite new to Gopher myself (old things new again?)
I also don't' really understand the discussion so far
or what the proposal is.

I also happen to agree with some other comments
wherein centralization has never really proven to be
a good thing. The Internet at large was designed to
be a decentralized homogenous network of interconnected
networks and computers. "Central Authority" has no place
on or in the Internet (but recent times are forcing this to
change and I believe it's a **BAD** thing).

If Gopher is to survive as a protocol and medium IHMO
it **MUST** remain simple; decentralized and open.


> Based on this,
>
> > What could be constraining and for whom?
> > For example: If there was a guide on how to setup Bucktooth which(the
> guide)
> > has been developed and was maintained by "the gopher project" anyone
> could
> > write h[is|er] own guide or propose changes or whatever. In which way
> could
> > this be constaining?
>
> It seems more like you're actually proposing a central resource or
> repository
> for this data, which doesn't really need anyone's permission ...
>

Indeed. If your ultimate goal is to help new users
being more content to Gopherspace then this is
fairly easily achieved IHMO without anything special.

You need: a "presence", "good content" and "a user base".

cheers
James




James Mills / prologic

E: prologic at shortcircuit.net.au
W: prologic.shortcircuit.net.au
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