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Uploading Gemini content

Sean Conner sean at conman.org

Sat Jun 13 08:05:57 BST 2020

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It was thus said that the Great Matthew Graybosch once stated:

On Sat, 13 Jun 2020 01:39:26 -0400

Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote:

I define two new URL schemes---"gemini+put" and "gemini+del". The

first is to add (or update) a file to a server, while the second

exists to delete a file. The protocol for uploading a file

(C=client, S=server):

May I suggest calling this ancillary protocol "titan" after the Titan

II missile repurposed by NASA as a launch vehicle for the Gemini

program? This might help distinguish it from the main gemini protocol.

I'll keep that in mind if the idea proves popular.

Also, I'm curious as to what this protocol offers over uploading via

sftp or rsync. Just as clients could shell out to $EDITOR or $VISUAL,

couldn't they also create, update, or delete remote content using

existing tools?

Are you trying to design a platform-agnostic method suitable

for non-Unix and non-Linux clients and servers?

One of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's initial ideas for HTTP was to allow the userto edit the page in the browser and have that update the file on the server. HTTP didn't get this capability until May of 1996 [1] where various methodswere defined that included PUT and DELETE. It's sad to think that nobrowsers at that time even attempted to do that [2]. Instead, we kept onusing FTP, later sftp and maybe even rsync for the technically minded.

As I mentioned, I know of at least two other people working on thisconcept [3], and the notion that having a single tool (even if it justshells out for the editing portion) might be a good idea to reduce friction. And the non-Unix thing is a bonus (but I wasn't even thinking in thatdirection).

-spc

[1] RFC-1945 which describes HTTP/1.0.

[2] Although if anyone knows of a browser that did, I'd like to know about it.

[3] To support a wiki on Gemini.