[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: the wheel of reincarnation goes sideways

[Grant Taylor via COFF <coff@tuhs.org>]

On 8/2/23 11:07 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> I guess?

I'm not endorsing it.

I have my own preferences that people question.

> Exactly. There are even pre-baked things one could put together 
> that would serve much the same purpose. Going back to gopher et al 
> seem like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. A small HTTP 
> server that serves a little subtree of files on some random port 
> and automatically renders markdown or something into trivial HTML is 
> really all one needs.

I always wanted something that would re-use the same content between 
multiple services.

I can make the same file(s) available via:

  - FTP(S)
  - HTTP(S)

Why can't I make the same file(s) available via Gopher too?

I wondered if it might be possible to do some magic at the file system 
level where the same source file(s) could be used and add wrappers 
around it to integrate said source file(s) into rendered files served up 
via the various protocols.

Obviously I've not yet been motivated to do anything with Gopher in this 
regard.

I'd likely include a BBS interface in this menagerie if I could do so. 
For various $REASONS.

> Tell that to the Fidonet people. :-)

The last time I looked, much of Fidonet (proper) and other FTNs were 
still using the Fido protocol (nomenclature?) to communicate between 
nodes.  There were a few offering SMTP gateways.

Have more of them migrated to SMTP gateways where Fidonet is now more of 
a separate SMTP network?

> I don't see what the protocol has to do with it, but sure.

I should clarify that I view SMTP as used on the Internet today as a 
very large network of federated email servers speaking a common 
protocol.  As such the network is largely interdependent on various 
other parts of the network, e.g. DNS.

I was hoping that Fidonet (proper) as an FTN was still using Fido 
protocol (nomenclature) such that it was largely independent from the 
aforementioned SMTP network.

Does the protocol separation make more sense now?



Grant. . . .