Sean Conner sean at conman.org
Sun Mar 14 22:46:03 GMT 2021
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It was thus said that the Great Liam once stated:
I did find the GitLab move strange. IMO it's not very "mission coherent" to
develop a lightweight alternative to the web on a site that shows a blank
white page without JavaScript enabled.
First off, as Stéphane has pointed out, people (and it was many people, bythe way) were complaining about all the talk on the mailing list. Themailing list was created *to talk about the Gemini protocol* and to hash thedetails out. Perhaps that wasn't stated strongly enough on the sign uppage, but I do have to wonder what other people expectd out the list.Personally, I never found the volumn overwhelming, but then again, I've beenon lists that have had 100+ messages per day, sustained (and a person highof 500 messages in a single day).
Second, about that "lightweight alternative to the web" bit ... havingbeen involved with Gemini since before the mailing list, it was clear to methat Gemini was never about a "lightweight alternative to the web" but animproved gopher. I think thinking of Gemini in terms of the web leads toall these proposed extensions (size, caching, uploads, etc.). I think it'sa failure to set expectations, but that's me.
Third, a bit more about that "lightweight alternative to the web" bit ...here's a TL;DR summary of the protocol:
The client connects to TCP port 1965 using TLS 1.2 or higher. The client then sends a URI and a CR, LF pair to make a request. The server then replies with a status line consisting of two digits, a space, some additional information depending upon the status, a CR, LF pair, and then in the case of success, the conent. The server then closes the connection.
Simple right?
TLS---people bitched about that. Drop support for 1.2. Drop TLS and usethis alternative scheme I just read about. Drop TLS entirely. Make TLSoptional!
TLS certificates---people bitched about that. Let's Encypt certificates? TOFU? How to TOFU? What to save for TOFU? Don't use Let's Encrypt. Don'tbother with validating server certificates.
URI---people bitched about that. ASCII only? Use IRIs! That's too hard! Is not! Is too! S'not! S'too! What about fragemnts? What about them? Hey! data: is a URI! No, ban those! No, they're valid URIs! They'llallow inlined images! So? That's bad!
The CR, LF pair---people bitched about that. Why both? Why not just LF? Itsaves a byte! It's too hard to deal with! Saving a byte? What, with theoverhead of TCP (40 bytes per packet)? And TLS (several additionalpackets).
The status line---people bitched about that! There are too few statuscodes! There are too many status codes! Let's use single digit statuscodes! Let's use tripple digit status codes! Let's use double digit statuscodes! We need redirection! We don't need redirection! Yes we do! AndGone. Really? We need senstive input. No we don't, it's security theater.
The MIME type for status 20---people bitched about that! Not about the MIMEbit directly, but about the parameters! It allows extensions! Strictlylimit the parameters! That will complicate clients because there are a lotof MIME types, with a lot of different parameters! But extentions!
And this is *JUST* for the protocol. Please check the mailing listarchives from 2019 onward---the bikeshedding that went on about text/geminimakes the above look trivial in nature. Simple? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
The suggestion of SourceHut sounds like a good compromise if it's true that
one can participate without an account.
I'm the one responsible for setting up the gitlab issue tracker forGemini. It was suggested I set one up using gitlab (and no, I won't say whomade the suggestion). I knew that github was off the table for this crowd,so I bit the bullet, created a gitlab account and went to town. I was notfamiliar with the other alternatives at the time, and people were *massivelybitching* about the volume on the mailing list.
I completely disagree with participation without an account. I'm sorry,but my experience with Gemini has shown that it's all too easy to bitchabout it than to do anything about it. That IRI thing? As far as I know,only *two* people (and I'm one of them) actually bothered implementing IRIsupport, just to see how difficult it was. TWO! There are way more thanTWO people who demand IRIs, and about an equal number who decry IRIs, andout of this lot, only TWO people bothered to try, and right now, betweenthose two peple, 50% are ready to dump the idea into the dumpster fire outback (for the record, I'm that 50%), because the two camps are mostlytalking about theory. Anyway, to get back onto the point---if you want tobitch about Gemini, I think it's fair to have some skin, however minimal, inthe game. If setting up an account is too much, tough!
I AM aware that there may be some technical difficulties in using gitlaband there are some who would participate that are otherwise unable to do so. For them, yes, the mailing list is still good---I do follow both (and yes,that means I hit *each and every* issue page on gitlab nearly everyday, evenif I don't reply).
I've only been a watcher of the spec process so far, but if contributing
involved making a GitLab account and keeping up with changes there then
that's not a barrier I'd cross. But I haven't been contributing so that
opinion weighs very little.
You don't need an account to follow the gitlab issues. You just can'tcomment on them without an account.
-spc