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V1.0
Last-modified: 2021-10-26.
Developed by University of Minnesota in the early 90's. Peaked in the early
90's. Gained a small resurgence in the 2000's. Gained a larger resurgence in
the late '10s with increased popularity coming from tilde servers and other
small internet communities such as SDF and Bitreich.
A forwards compatible extension for gopher developed by UMN in '93. Supports
form uploads, MIME types, and extra metadata queries. Uses the gopher://
scheme. Was never widely adopted, and was not part of the 2000's gopher
resurgence.
Vanilla gopher wrapped in a TLS connection. Started circulating the gopher
mailing list around the time gemini was created. Not widely used (but did
manage to make it into curl!), and is primarily advocated by Bitreich members.
https://github.com/curl/curl/pull/6208
Information about this protocol is sparse, but at first glance it appears to be
an amateurish blunder that should have just used a subset of HTTP/HTML. Doesn't
support inline images.
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
A stripped down version of gemini that was outlined by solderpunk in an
informal blog post. There is no actual spec for mercury and it is not
implemented anywhere. Mainly used by the gemini community as a stand-in for
the abstract idea of "gemini minus TLS" or "gemini minus feature x".
gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/solderpunk/gemlog/the-mercury-protocol.gmi
The "plaintext protocol", probably the closest thing we will get to a concrete
implementation of mercury. Created by gemini mailing list persona non grata,
petite abeille. Supports both non-TLS and TLS, and is backwards compatible with
gemini. Was originally referred to as "☿://".
Companion protocol designed to work alongside gemini for file upload, by the
creator of Ariane.
https://codeberg.org/oppenlab/iapetus
Companion protocol designed to work alongside gemini for file upload, by Alex
Schroeder. Notably implemented by the Lagrange browser.
https://transjovian.org:1965/titan
Companion protocol designed to work alongside gemini for file upload,
independently proposed on the mailing list by Sean Conner and later benthor,
who hosts a specification.
Borrows many design cues from gemini, but was built from the ground-up with a
different set of design goals. Intended to exist as a separate protocol and not
"augment" gemini (spartan is to gemini, as gemini is to gopher). No TLS.
Because sometimes in response to uploading files, someone will throw out a "you
should use FTP" as if that's not a loaded statement...
File transfer protocol that was created in the 70's. Contains lots of legacy
cruft because it was designed pre-TCP/IP, and is difficult to implement.
Plain FTP with a TLS layer added on top. Keeps all the cruft of FTP.
"SSH File Transfer Protocol". Despite the name, this is not FTP but a new file
transfer protocol designed to work on top of SSH.
Mail comments and questions about the FAQ to: lazar.michael22@gmail.com
Copyright (C) Michael Lazar 2021.
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