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(November 16, 2000) (Slashdotted November 23, 2000) Average load time: 7 seconds
---------------- In response to criticism that this Manifesto should be on gopher:// itself, my reply is that free WWWeb access is abundant while Gopherspace is almost extinct, and that we need to first convert the WWWeb World and not live in our ivory-tower cloister alone -- so the word should be broadcast thru as many protocols as possible, first... ----------------
the gopher:// manifesto =======================
Gopher is an infoserver which can deliver text, graphics, audio, and multimedia to clients. Keeping documents "link clean", making linking a function of the server info-tree and not in the doc, layout is kept to its most frugal minimum, and is standard across all docs. No graphic design means its the ideal navigable interface, a hypertext Eden. It gives simplified usage for sight-impaired users, same contents for wired/wiredless, and requires no capital investments in layout and "design". Gopher is real -- and it was fully functional in 1992, even without advertisements!
But once the Internet became commercialized, this ideal hypertext interface was forgotten, and the gopher dream was scrapped.
The dirty little secret is that today, the most popular browsers can recognize any URL -- even <tt>gopher://</tt>! (Netscape is working to stop this.)
And mathematical formulae seem to indicate that the speed benefits of putting the entire non-commercial WWW back on gopher could increase access speeds by over 10,000%!
Is it time for a new Renaissance on the Internet, to bring back the promise of the early years??
gopher://, aka The Bring Back Gopher Campaign, is a grass-roots movement to make this happen.
What we need:
- Modern Gopher servers (eventual goal is for an Apache Gopher server)
- Old gopher clients recompiled for modern clients, and distributed with them by default (Apple support)(http://athene.owl.de/gopher) (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49334) A patch job for hackers: Gopher still not recognized by Mozilla?! (http://www.mozilla.org)
- Investigate the "plugin possibility": the last Gopher server was ported to FreeBSD; developer says a release of the VR Gopher source code (still proprietary!) could give Gopher a future as a plugin...
- A gopher-browser capable of receiving gopher-streams for audio and video
- Campaign focal point with mailing-list? (we need to ask for gopher.browser.org) (first: need host mirror for this doc on Apache server... volunteers?)
- Gopher-compatible multimedia streams for television stations
We can do it!
Campaign links and info -----------------------
Point of Gopher Campaign discussion: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=696020200.1
Alternates: news:comp.infosystems.gopher http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/22/1811243&mode=thread
The King of All Gopher Sites: gopher://gopher.ptloma.edu/
Institution that invented it keeping flame alive (Univ of Minnesota): gopher://gopher.tc.umn.edu/
First gopher weblog-resource page: gopher://gopher.metafilter.com/ (need to push for gopher.weblogs.com)
Gopher newsgroups: news:comp.infosystems.gopher (general) news:alt.internet.services (point of contact) news:alt.folklore.computers (knowledgebase) news:soc.culture.internet (history) news:soc.culture.usenet (talk) news:alt.internet.provider (demand support at isp level) news:soc.culture.www (competitive) news:netscape.public.general (enemy)
Gophersearch: Veronica-2 gopher://gopher.ptloma.edu:70/1/v2 Jughead gopher.utah.edu
Gopher chatroom: odili.net/chat/
New projects & software -----------------------
UMN gopher/gopherd, GPL Debian!: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gopher.html http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gopherd.html
WWWeb to gopher gateway cgi! http://www.heatdeath.org:8003/webgopher/tree.jsp (javascript)
Modern gohper hackers: http://athene.owl.de/gopher
New working client in dbXML: http://www.dbxmlgroup.com/
Overview of clients and servers: http://www.yale.edu/pclt/WINWORLD/GOPHER.HTM
Personal Gopher: http://tangible.media.mit.edu/~ullmer/papers/pgopher/node3.html
Gopherculture & history -----------------------
Gopher knowledge (examples): gopher://quux.org/ multi-gig text treaasure-trove! http://gopher.cuis.edu:70/0gopher_root2%3a[stumpers-l]stumpers-l.1995-03 gopher://gopher.ag.ohio-state.edu:70/11/newsletters/byg http://www.io.com/internet/yanoff/inet.services.html
Gopher jewels (early infotree structure): http://www.galaxy.com/GJ/ http://riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Mlist/archivejun94/msg00080.html http://www.uccs.edu/gopher/jewels.html http://scout18.cs.wisc.edu/NH/95-05/95-05-08/0014.html (end-of-era)
Gopher spec: http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/rfc/rfc1689.html
A Brief History of Gopher: http://www.thebee.com/bweb/iinfo15.htm
Gopher icons: http://www.mat.dtu.dk/icons/gopher/ (UNIX xbm format) http://www.uvm.edu/icon/Gopher/ http://www5.biostr.washington.edu/icons/Gopher/ http://websoft.ics.uci.edu/Icons/roadkill.gif (404?) http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/icons/icon.roadkill.gif
The move against gopher -----------------------
WWW-revisionism: http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?Gopherspace
MSU kills its servers: http://www.statenews.com/editionssummer97/070397/campus.html
Result of overzealous server purging: http://courses.wc.cc.va.us/wcb/schools/WCC/ist/shavens/7/forums/forum3/messages/2.html
Writing on the wall: Netscape Inc. trying to kill gopher (circa November, 2000) http://www.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=693812882
Anecdotes, stories, fun -----------------------
Uplifting gopher story: Connor Sexton writes, "I remember when I was 9 (im 14 now) I was using Gopher with my dad on my old 486. I remember how cool it was to know that this information was out there on another computer, being accessed by other people.. There was a wealth of information so overwhelming I didnt know what to do with it. As a young child, I was highly fascinated by Space, and I asked my dad to type in 'How to be and Astronaut' and I got an essay with that topic. I was SO happy, I was amazed at what was happening. Today, I use the internet and witness the horrible commercialization of a wonderful place. The far reaching hands of capatalism leave no stone unturned. I am willing to help you pull this together in any way I can. I would love to see the reinstatement of Goper."
More Gopher thoughts: Lawrence Rhodes writes, "'Point your Gopher to...' I remember getting excited when almost anything followed these words. It was a sign of progress. Or of the impending state of information connectedness we all now experience. Now it seems so quaint. I miss it so not for the underpinning technology (which may or may not have been superior) but for the feeling that the world of information technology, indeed the world itself, was advancing rapidly enough to allow the common man access to the world's great storehouses of data. Of couse, in retrospect, I suppose if I had thought about the common man's infatigable hunger for porn and nonstop commerce and the myriad other forms of bad taste, I would have seen the dangers of the banal. Indeed Gopher represented a simpler, more naive time."
Sober warning: Kris Kennaway writes, "... since there are apparently still people using gopherd, someone really should fix the remote buffer overflows in the server which were reported a while back on bugtraq (search on www.securityfocus.com for the details). An updated version was released after the first one was found, but then there were more reported and no new version was released. ... it's kind of disturbing to think that almost all of what remains of the old gopher network is probably vulnerable to a remote root exploit."
Co-author of Internet Gopher protocol speaks: Bob Alberti writes (partial letter), "When in the dawn of the Third Millennium people, misguided or simply ignorant, are still using 'anonymous' FTP for file servers; and as cell phone developers reinvent the wheel by whittling HTML down to more compact protocols rather than building upon what exists; then it is clear that greater understanding and awareness of the Gopher and Gopher+ protocol is sorely needed. "FTP is a 1960's-era solution designed to communicate between 'dumb' terminals and mainframes. Having written the FTP-to-Gopher gateway, I can attest that the FTP protocol is incredibly primitive and vulnerable to abuse. And the conventional overloading of the protocol for 'anonymous' FTP service is an example of speed and patchwork overcoming design limitations. FTP is notoriously insecure, requiring in many cases bidirectional firewall holes for support, and communicating in cleartext. FTP can be used to damage its own server, and FTP cannot serve forms, and only serves banners with clumsy patchwork. "Gopher servers can share filesystems quickly and easily. Gopher allows for 'cap' files to modify the appearance of the directories being served. It allows for cgi-style scripts, form submission, and multiple languages. And Gopher easily overlays existing FTP service directories, providing freedom of choice. Gopher+ was a bridge spanning the 1200-baud world of its existence with the 56K future only a few years ahead. When a severe communications bottleneck exists between the server and the client, then the quick, clean and efficient Gopher+ protocol provides a feasible solution. "But Gopher+ will benefit from greater exposure: ignorance of the Gopher protocol does not serve the greater Internet community: as with any powerful tool, Gopher service can pose a security vulnerability, especially when inexpertly implemented. And in order to provide commercial services, Gopher servers with greater encryption and security features must be developed. "Wireless communications developers would be well-advised to look at this venerable Internet protocol when seeking ways to communicate with wireless and handheld devices such as PDAs and cell phones. The Gopher+ protocol could be a quick, efficient, standardized open-source solution to the problem of handheld clients."
REQUEST: URLs for any CGI Gopher to Web gateways, for the gopher:// impaired?
Send your gopher stories! Just Gopher It! http://www.scn.org/~bkarger/gopher-manifesto
by Bjorn Karger bkarger@scn.org