On 11/18/20 6:00 AM, Roman Danyliw wrote:
As I responded to Toerless [1], the primary users of FTP (by volume) don't appear to be disadvantaged:
The issue is not about the "primary" users (by volume).
(Remember, traffic volume is not an indicator of importance.)
This is an accessibility issue. Would you consider it acceptable
to deny access to IETF documents to sight- or hearing-impaired
persons because "the primary users... don't appear to be
disadvantaged"? If not, why is it acceptable to deny access to
those who cannot use crypto?
I don't think rsync is an acceptable substitute for FTP (valuable though rsync is) for several reasons: (a) it's not that widely known and mostly known in the Unix/Linux worlds; (b) people looking for a way to access individual files may not stumble on rsync because it's generally a mirroring solution; (c) it's not really designed to permit single file access even though it can be used that way; (d) a lot of people don't know that rsync access to IETF documents even exists or how to use it, and (given that http access is already cut off) may have no way of discovering it; (e) support for rsync is not integrated into browsers (though if browser vendors are also crippling ftp and http URLs that point may be moot).
More broadly, I keep seeing examples of people arguing for
restrictions on how IETF resources may be accessed, based on the
assumption that everyone should use IETF resources the way
most people use IETF resources. Trying to force everyone to
be alike is deeply offensive and counterproductive to IETF's
goals. IETF works best when it has wide participation.
Keith
