On 11/13/20 12:43 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 12:01 PM Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm very opposed to this proposal.
FTP is a much better interface than HTTP for scripting, mirroring, and remote file access (i.e. mounting an FTP server like a "share" so that it can be accessed from one's computer just like any other file system
I disagree. The ability to mount HTTP file systems is actually built into Windows. I don't think FTP is supported.
Windows? Who uses that? :) People who actually want to get
work done generally try to avoid it.
Get HTTP file systems supported by as many implementations and platforms as FTP use as a file system, and I'll assent to transitioning from FTP access to HTTP file system access.
FTP is a very peculiar protocol, I have implemented it several times and it was awful to do even before NATs got in the way. It is not really a separate protocol, it is an extension of Telnet.
Without arguing about details, yes it's a peculiar protocol.
But a subset that works with 99.99% of the computer systems in use
today is not that bad, and there are several decades of
accumulated understanding behind it. None of which is terribly
relevant to this discussion, since almost nobody actually has to
implement FTP any more, certainly not the IETF. All IETF has to
do is put a server up, and plenty of good servers are available
off-the-shelf.
Oh and having to redo every transfer because the default mandated by the spec was to damage the file assuming a charset conversion was ridiculous even for the time.
Yeah, but nobody does that any more at least between reasonable systems. And at least transfers between very dissimilar systems still work, even though they're not much needed any more.
We are inventing the future here, not keeping the past alive.
A future of constantly assured obsolesence is not one I want to
contribute to, and that's exactly where the web is headed. It's
such a complex mess now that the number of independent effective
client implementations is approaching 1. If the web is the
future, we're all doomed. And throwing away things that work is
incredibly shortsighted.
Keith
