## Panel Discussion: Gopher

by

all people attending physically or on IRC.

Moderator:

Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net>

## Why a Panel Discussion?

* We meet every year.
* Everyone interested in this community is listening.
* Bringing up your opinion is your chance to form a »publicity«.
* This will lead to democracy by having a »public opinion«.
* Only a »public opinion« leads to »democracy«.
* When there is a log we have a »history«.
* Like a lightning talk, but with further discussion.
* If you do not open up your voice you can not expect your opinion to be
  followed.
* The facts which are brought up are ment to seep down your neuronal networks.
  It could be facts or ideas come up afterwards. Use the IRC channel to keep
  up the discussion.
* Discussions do not end after this time slot.

## Discussion

* Joining a discussion means to have the formal contract of:
	* You are open to change your opinion, based of what is said.
	* If you are not open to this, do not bring up your voice.
		* MAIN RULE
	* Keep to the speaking rules.
	* Absolute no trolling. (Can be done afterwards.)
	* Keep to the scientific theory of consideration and theory.
	* There are no absolute facts, we only have proven theories.

## Discussion Rules

* Only one person is speaking at the time, for information sychronisation in
  all heads on IRC and in the room.
* One person is watching IRC for questions. If you ask a question on IRC,
  prepend it qith »Q:«
* Prepare to give around the microphone so it's on the audio stream.
* If there is something which is not be heard on the audio stream, repeat it
  for the recording. (Speak out IRC questions too.)
* If you do not want to be heard in the recording, tell me afterwards. I can
  not stop live recordings. There is no true truth.

## Topic #1: Shall we standardize Gopher and its current state in a new RFC?

Questions and Facts for entering the discussion:

* We require a group of people to work on it.

* We require someone to work with IETF.

* How are your experiences with such a process?

* Who can help?

Now start discussing and using all of your brain cells. :)

## Topic #2: Gopher TLS

Questions and Facts for entering the discussion:

* There have been several proposals:
	1. Connect via TLS, if it does not work, connect without.
		* For the daemon vice versa, to look for a TLS header.
	2. Have a separate gopher TLS port.
	3. Have metadata in the gopher protocol.

* How about using SSH?

* Gopher should be simple to implement.

* We are here to preserve the old gopher too.

Now start discussing and using all of your brain cells. :)

## Topic #3: Menu Item Types

Questions and Facts for entering the discussion:

* There are menu item types defined in the RFC.

* UMN gopher(1) client has some defined too.

* Some types are now be used regulary.

* Shall we define more types for specific purposes?

* Shall »h« and »u« survive for links?
	* Is »u« for direct URI enough?

* How about »m«, it gives us all possibility of MIME?

* How about Video? »v«?

* Scripting?

Now start discussing and using all of your brain cells. :)

## Topic #4: Gophermap / Menu Markup

Questions and Facts for entering the discussion:

* Geomyidae uses gph.

* Other gopher daemons use gophermaps.

* Shall the definition just be daemon specific?

* Do we need a standardize format, which is compatible to all gopher servers?
	* Is raw menu printing enough for this?
	* How about dynamics, like server and port replacement, like in
	  geomyidae?

Now start discussing and using all of your brain cells. :)

## Topic #5: Dynamic Content

Questions and Facts for entering the discussion:

* Geomyidae implements some CGI interface.
	* It tries to convert some parameters to the CGI web interface.

* Shall we standardize here?

* Commandline parameters vs. environment variables.

* How about scripting in gopher menus?
	* Will this be the Javascript mess of the web?

Now start discussing and using all of your brain cells. :)

## Topic #6: Tor Usage

* brought up by kroovy
* Please read: gopher://kroovy.de/0/phlog/gopher_tor.txt

* How can we improve .onion usage?

* Is changing the URIs in proxies an option?

* Will this make people go away, because they need tor?

## Thanks

Thank you all for taking part. Of course further discussions on IRC are always
welcome. Please join in!

	Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net>

Have fun!