IETF Administrative Director wrote:
All; The Technology Management Committee of the IAOC is considering recommending to the IAOC ending support for FTP to retrieve files from the IETF servers and would like to hear from the community before the IAOC taking its decision. This does not include rfc-editor.org. The use of FTP to retrieve files from the IETF servers has been declining steadily. The files made available with that protocol are also available using http and rsync. (See the modules exposed at rsync.ietf.org using "rsync rsync.ietf.org::") The majority of the current FTP traffic appears to be from mirror sites that would be better served using rsync. Input received by 20 April will inform the decision.
It seems to me that FTP should be maintained as much out of tradition as for any other reason.
Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra