--On Thursday, July 11, 2024 08:40 -0400 Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 7/10/24 23:10, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote: > >> Move both to HISTORIC. Saying something is obsolete lets the new >> stuff arrive to replace it. > > I think it's the other way around. Something becomes obsolete > after something better arrives to replace it. I have to agree with Keith and let me go a step further. With Internet applications, we are not in a situation in which the existence of one application blocks the introduction of another. The very fact that plausible replacements -- with similar or a superset of the functionality of the original -- have not emerged, gotten traction, and been standardized, actually suggests that the old application is adequate. It could, of course, also suggest either of two other things: * that no one cares. In that case moving something to Historic will not do a thing to promote the introduction of replacements. * that the IETF is sufficiently broken that new work that is clearly needed, with people (not just one or two enthusiasts) ready to do the work, is being discouraged or blocked somehow. In that case, whether FTP and/or Telnet are make Historic or not is the least of our problems. To respond quickly to a couple of other comments: * I hope and assume Brian was joking, but... Unless we intend to create a new division of the Protocol Police, with Global, maybe interplanetary, enforcement authority and mechanisms to immediately disconnect or imprison any user who dares to try to use the protocol and to fine any developer who dares to including a Telnet client or interface in its offerings, making Telnet historic would not get port 23 back. Instead, it would create serious interoperability problems as soon as something else tried to use that port for another purpose. * Unless it were updated/extended to be strictly forward-compatible (including supporting any option negotiation than anyone in the world was using), promoting SSH to Internet Standard has little or nothing to do with this (even though it is probably overdue, especially if it brought us a consolidate document). People who are happy with Telnet and can find it will keep using Telnet. People who understand the advantages of SSH or who find accessing it more convenient will use SSH, just like they do today. The IETF doesn't have much influence there either, certainly not with an established and well-documented protocol. Constructive suggestion for anyone who wants to see FTP and/or Telnet go away: draft an Applicability Statement that carefully explains the issues and risks with those protocols, possibly explores where they are and are not supported, and discusses and recommends some alternatives. Such a document might get some traction and be helpful where changing of labels (such as reclassifying Internet Standards to Historic) would not. Looking at the situation a different way, the same explanation and document content would (or should be) a prerequisite changing the status of Internet Standards that are still in use, even for marginal cases, to Historic (or much of anything else). john
