Re: The yearly FTP rant (Was: Re: Passive FTP and NAT/PAT with PIX and Serv-U)

[Mikael Olsson <mikael.olsson () clavister com>]

Fritz Ames wrote:
> Does that mean that we can criticize the old protocols for
> not meeting standards based on our current perspective?  

Definately. After all, this is the essence of the engineering process.

> Is it important to remember that we are standing on the 
> shoulders of giants? 

I am in NO way trying to belittle the achievements of the forerunners
of the Internet as we know it today. Believe me, I'm not. I'm in
no way saying that they are to blame for not being able to foresee
the modern day developments of the Internet, or computers in general,
thirty years in the future.


> Read, completely, RFC2468 and RFC2555 to see who
> *some* of these people are whom we are criticizing. 

Again, I'm not really criticizing the _people_, only the
applicability of their work in the modern environment.
(And, yes, those RFCs are worth the read.)

I believe this quote from rfc2555 captures the essence of what I'd
like to see happen with FTP:
   "The RFCs document the odyssey of the ARPANET and, later, the 
   Internet, as its creators and netizens explore, discover, build, 
   re-build, argue and resolve questions of design, concepts and 
   applications of computer networking."


> So I guess that I'll have to sign on to help work on a better 
> spec., to replace the current spec.  Where do I go to stand in line?

Ditto. I've been considering contacting a whole bunch of FTP
developers the past couple of years, and trying to get some concensus 
on what a good solution might be (other than deprecating the protocol
altogether, which I believe won't happen any time soon), and use that 
as a starting point for some standardization work. (Starting in the 
other end is bound to fail, I believe. There are lots of proposed 
improvements to FTP that have never taken off.)

So, on the off chance that someone with influence in a major
FTP client / server app is listening: get in touch with me; 
maybe we can get a bit of productive discussion started.


Regards,
Mikael Olsson

-- 
Mikael Olsson, Clavister AB
Storgatan 12, Box 393, SE-891 28 ÖRNSKÖLDSVIK, Sweden
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Fax: +46 (0)660 122 50       WWW: http://www.clavister.com

For bored sysadmins: http://lart.badf00d.org
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