From: gopher-bounce@complete.org
       Date: Mon Aug  4 21:36:07 2008
       Subject: [gopher] Re: Gopherness
       
       I don't doubt the usefulness of a new gopher-ish protocol especially
       when compared with Gopher, that was a comparative (to FTP) lightweight
       when it was created.  I don't say that people shouldn't create new
       things, but to change the protocol means that the old one is gone.
       Kaput.  Old clients will not work anymore (with "updated" servers) and
       no one is supposed to care that they don't work anymore.  Gopher has
       been somewhat unique because it is still useful in spite of being
       frozen in time.  Ten year old c64 clients still work with gopher
       servers and you can access a file (if you want to) through gopher.
       Building clients and servers are a great beginning work in socket
       programming before you graduate to tougher protocols.  I have given
       these justifications before and I tire of bringing them up time and
       time again.
       
       When you talk to port 70, an internet server expects to converse in
       Gopher.  This is established and has been for years.  If you want to
       speak another protocol, get yourself another port.  This is also the
       established way to handle new protocols that refuse to be
       backward-compatible with established protocols.
       
       If you guys who want an essentially new protocol go off and do that,
       it hurts no one.  gopher continues and whatever work you produce can
       press forward.  If you want your servers to do gopher, your new
       protocol, and a few others, that is wonderful and great and you have
       much precedent for your work, as there are gopher/web servers out
       there.  I say, go for it.
       
       If you people insist on breaking old gopher clients and servers, you
       are being destructive and people who prefer the original protocol and
       like to serve content viewable on 80s era computers will be cut off.
       Gopher will no longer do that job.  I think it would be rather
       disingenuous to call the new protocol gopher, as it will not be what
       UMN produced (sounds like it won't work with it, either) and what they
       named after their mascot.  It almost smacks of trademark infringement
       (though that is probably a stretch) to break the original.
       
       My basic question is:  Must Gopher0 be destroyed (or broken) for
       people to find happiness here?  Can't you guys make a new name and
       register a new port assignment along with creating your new gopher-ish
       protocol?
       
       If Avery wants a new mailing list, I propose that it be created with
       the intent of talking about the "New" gopher.  That is always what
       justified a new mailing list in the past - taking a new direction.
       
       On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Kyevan <kyevan@sinedev.org> wrote:
       > Jay Nemrow wrote:
       >> "Updated" nostalgia is not nostalgia at all.
       >
       > Sure, but an improved Gopher could have practical uses. I think,
       > perhaps, it might be a better idea to start from nearly scratch and
       > create a new protocol that takes the best ideas from Gopher (the
       > simplicity of the client! the structured layout!) and add and modifies
       > features that we feel would be useful (Replace the limited item type
       > system with something based on MIME types (which has the useful fallback
       > of "display unknown text/* types as text, everything else unknown should
       > be treated as application/octet-stream"), sending some metadata in the
       > response, perhaps define a way to send requests with data).
       >
       > This is different than extending Gopher in that we DON'T worry about
       > backwards compatibility - at least, not on the protocol level. Servers
       > that speak both Gopher and Comepher (or another bad pun, since those
       > seem to be inevitable) would be a Good Thing.
       >
       >
       >