Gopher License - Actual Data... I'm very disappointed.
Rob Raisch
say the very least, I am very disappointed. This is not the agreement
"that supports the community" that I had expected, and in point of fact,
is designed to punish commercial providers who wish to merely provide
non-commercial information to the Internet.
A commercial site who:
a. is accessible from the Internet
b. offers no products or services for sale or lease through this
server, and
c. does not charge for access to, or information contain on,
the server
is required to pay a 1st year license fee of $5000.00 per server.
Succeeding years will be charged at $2500.00 per server.
You read that correctly, I am afraid, five thousand dollars fee, simply
to enrich the informational content of the Global Internet.
Other details are:
no connection to the Global Internet,
no selling or leasing,
no charge to connect,
$1,000.00/yr. plus $1.00 per client over 100
$ 500.00/yr after the 1st
connection to the Global Internet
selling and leasing a product of service
no charge to connect,
$10,000.00/yr.
$ 5,000.00/yr after the 1st
connection to the Global Internet
pay to connect or pay for information
7.5% of the total amount charged for the service
Mark, Paul Yen, Fahad, et. al., congratulations. You have may have succeeded
in accomplishing something which it takes a large corporation years of
practice and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to do:
You've killed the product before it ever leaves your door.
--Paul Lindner writes:
-- I know that the UofMN will take a moderate stance on these matters.
-- You're not going to see another IPX etal here.
--
-- Greed would kill gopher, believe me..
I believe you Paul, really I do. I am curious to know, though, how do you
define the word: moderate?
</rr> (speaking as an individual and a concerned Internaut)
Chuck Shotton
Raisch) wrote:
>
> I just received the current gopher license agreement from UMinn, and to
> say the very least, I am very disappointed. This is not the agreement
> "that supports the community" that I had expected, and in point of fact,
> is designed to punish commercial providers who wish to merely provide
> non-commercial information to the Internet.
>
UMinn is attempting to make money off of software they have developed at
THEIR expense. I suppose you'd have Microsoft give away their code for free
as well? UMinn has been more than generous IMHO by giving away gopher
servers, clients, and associated specs for the past couple of years. Just
because they are an educational institution doesn't reduce the value (or
cost) of their intellectual effort in developing their gopher software
(versus a commercial software house, for example). Why *should* you expect
it for free if you're a commercial site?
> Mark, Paul Yen, Fahad, et. al., congratulations. You have may have succeeded
> in accomplishing something which it takes a large corporation years of
> practice and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to do:
>
> You've killed the product before it ever leaves your door.
If you feel the cost is too much to bear, write your own gopher server and
clients. The specification is there, and it's not that difficult to do. In
fact, you could probably do it for less than one year's license fee in
labor costs. After that's done, see how you feel about giving it away to
commercial users. Would you be as generous as UMinn?
--_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Chuck Shotton |
Ass't Director, Academic Computing | "This space for rent."
UT Health Science Center Houston |
csho...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu |
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Mahesh BigMan Subramanya
>
> UMinn is attempting to make money off of software they have developed at
> THEIR expense. I suppose you'd have Microsoft give away their code for
free
> as well? UMinn has been more than generous IMHO by giving away gopher
> servers, clients, and associated specs for the past couple of years.
Just
> because they are an educational institution doesn't reduce the value (or
> cost) of their intellectual effort in developing their gopher software
> (versus a commercial software house, for example). Why *should* you
expect
> it for free if you're a commercial site?
>
Er.., I don't think that is quite the point. I tend to agree with Ed
(Vilmetti). I have spent the last couple of years singing the praises of
information access, and the best part of the last year telling anyone and
everyone about gopher. I *knew* that there was a license, but had assumed
that it would be somethinhg *REASONABLE* (and had a faint hope that it end
up as another PD package).
Now however, all sort of stuff is coming into play.
a)Our campus computer store has its computer prices available via
gopher.
b) Hardware vendors (Sun, IBM, HP, etc) wish to make their pricing
available via gopher
c) Travel agents, florists, hairdressers, kinko's, etc. wish to
detail student services, hours, prices, etc.. via gopher.
WHO PAYS WHOM? In a self-contained environment like our campus, most of
the above services are *really* useful, eliminating the need to wade
through phone books, answering machines, operating hours, etc. And a
blanket statement of "You shouldn't be advertising anyhow" doesn't quite
cut it... And what's the dividing line 'tween commercial and
non-commercial?
> If you feel the cost is too much to bear, write your own gopher server
and
> clients. The specification is there, and it's not that difficult to do.
In
> fact, you could probably do it for less than one year's license fee in
> labor costs. After that's done, see how you feel about giving it away to
> commercial users. Would you be as generous as UMinn?
>
Quite frankly, yes. I am contributing some time towards some sort of
freeware gopher if that becomes necessary. It would still be cool if UMN
rethinks their position, but if they don't, redoing it may be the way to
go.
GNU Gopher? Maybe we should call it Wildebeest?
--
********************* DALEKS RULE *************************
Mahesh Subramanya INTERNET: mah...@darwin.cc.nd.edu
Senior Analyst
Office of University Computing
University of Notre Dame Voice: (219) 631-6421
Notre Dame, IN 46556 Fax: (219) 631-8201
Bob Peterson
|> I just received the current gopher license agreement from UMinn, and to
|> say the very least, I am very disappointed. This is not the agreement
|> "that supports the community" that I had expected, and in point of fact,
|> is designed to punish commercial providers who wish to merely provide
|> non-commercial information to the Internet.
|>
|>
|> Other details are:
|>
|> no connection to the Global Internet,
Ah, ambiguity! There is a major difference between a company having
a connection to the Internet, and that company providing access from
the Global Internet to the company's Gopher servers. I strongly suspect
many institutions, such as Texas Instruments, would use servers
internally but never install one on the "firewall" machine.
|> no selling or leasing,
Similarly, does "selling" refer to a company's internal chargeback
systems? That is, does the 7.5% royalty mentioned below apply to
charges paid by an internal organization for use of internal resources?
|> no charge to connect,
|> $1,000.00/yr. plus $1.00 per client over 100
Certainly the $1.00 per client over 100 is a reasonable fee, until you
consider the cost of tracking who has clients installed in an
organization with 40,000 workstations/PCs. A flat rate or a rate based
on the total potential installed base would be substantially less
expensive than attempting to track the actual installed base.
I would have an easier time selling a single annual payment of, say,
$5,000 for a company-wide license, i.e., an unlimited number of servers
and clients. Of course, I'll be asked what, beyond source code, we get
for that payment, e.g., support, ongoing updates, etc.
|> $ 500.00/yr after the 1st
|>
|> ...
|> connection to the Global Internet
|> pay to connect or pay for information
|> 7.5% of the total amount charged for the service
|>
|> Mark, Paul Yen, Fahad, et. al., congratulations. You have may have succeeded
|> in accomplishing something which it takes a large corporation years of
|> practice and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to do:
|>
|> You've killed the product before it ever leaves your door.
|> ...
If the above summary is correct, I doubt I'll ever be able to
convince the decision makers to go with Gopher.
|> </rr> (speaking as an individual and a concerned Internaut)
Bob
--
Bob Peterson Work: pete...@csc.ti.com Expressway Site
Texas Instruments Home: pete...@zgnews.lonestar.org North Building
P.O. Box 655474, MS238 TIMSG: RWP Landline: +1 214 995 6080 Aisle A4
Dallas, Tx USA 75265 FAX line: +1 214 995 0304 2-88V97
Garrett Wollman
>THEIR expense.
Correction: UMinn is attempting to make money off software they
originally developed and a lot of other users have improved, enhanced,
expanded, and standardized upon. BIIIG difference! (I'm glad now
that they dumped the original Xgopher, which I sent them a pile of
fixes for, for the UIUC version...)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ...
wol...@emba.uvm.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance.
uvm-gen!wollman | It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people
UVM disagrees. | who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant
Michael Morse
Is this license available freely? I have lots of questions, perhaps covered
in the document itself.
--Mike
Michael Morse Internet: mmo...@nsf.gov
National Science Foundation BITNET: mmorse@NSF
1800 G St. N.W. Room 401 Telephone: (202) 357-7659
Washington, D.C. 20550 FAX: (202) 357-7663
Chuck Shotton
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>
> In article <cshotton-1...@oac2.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> csho...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton) writes:
> >UMinn is attempting to make money off of software they have developed at
> >THEIR expense.
>
> Correction: UMinn is attempting to make money off software they
> originally developed and a lot of other users have improved, enhanced,
> expanded, and standardized upon. BIIIG difference! (I'm glad now
> that they dumped the original Xgopher, which I sent them a pile of
> fixes for, for the UIUC version...)
>
In large part, you are correct. I wonder how UMinn is working out the
legalities, royalties, licenses, etc. with all of the individuals whose
code is part of gopher. I know that there are substantial portions of
gopherd that were lifted directly from NNTP as well as portions that are
taken verbatim from from the book "UNIX Network Programming".
I suppose I should clarify my original post. I don't begrudge UMinn one red
cent that they may make off of selling/licensing gopher to commercial
users. However, in light of the genesis of much of their code, I think they
may be better off acknowledging that all gopher code made available to the
public up to this point is effectively public domain. Their only other
choice is to contact the authors of all the code fragments they've lifted
and compensate them accordingly.
There is ample precedent for an organization taking what is effectively
free code, adding value, and selling the resulting product. In many
respects, this is what UMinn is doing and I don't think this is necessarily
a bad thing. But, if UMinn were to threaten legal action against any other
organization trying to do the same with existing gopher code, they may find
themselves on shakey legal footing since gopher is widely perceived as a
collaborative effort.
I know we've sunk no small amount of time and effort into enhancing one of
the original Unix clients to support DOS. It'd be a tough call to say
whether that client's code was still covered by UMinn's copyright or UT's.
I'm sure that there are several other organizations that have made similar
modifications/contributions to the gopher software suite.
Ultimately, if UMinn decides to be mercenary about it, the logical thing to
do is simply write a set of clients and server software for gopher, stuff a
GNU software license on it, and give it away for free. The level of effort
required is *relatively* low and I think the results in the marketplace
would be obvious. (not to mention the obvious advantages of rewriting the
code into a more maintainable form!)
John Franks
> GNU Gopher? Maybe we should call it Wildebeest?
>
Stew Ellis writes:
> I guess we need to start up a PIG (Pig Isn't Gopher) information server
> project.
No, no, no. It should be Gnupher.
--
John Franks Dept of Math. Northwestern University
jo...@math.nwu.edu
John Stanley
>In article <cshotton-1...@oac2.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> csho...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Chuck Shotton) writes:
>>UMinn is attempting to make money off of software they have developed at
>>THEIR expense.
>Correction: UMinn is attempting to make money off software they
>originally developed and a lot of other users have improved, enhanced,
>expanded, and standardized upon. BIIIG difference! (I'm glad now
I do hope that UMinn is planning on paying those who have submitted
fixes and enhancements.
What? They expected us all to do this for FREE?
Stew Ellis
>--
I sort of like Gnupher, but I was trying to come up with another of those
wonderful recursive acronyms (GNU, MINCE, PINE, ELLE, others?). I was also
thinking of gopher-like animals, such as the whistle PIG, otherwise known as
the marmot or groundhog. I also thought of the prairie dog, but I could not
recurse an acronym from hog or dog. I have just thought of another one that
is not only recursive, but plays on university rivalries: BADGER (Badger's
Another Damn Gopher Emulator and Replicator).
Other suggestions?
--
___________________
R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Assoc.Prof., (Off)313-762-9765 / _____ ______
Humanities & Social Science, GMI Eng.& Mgmt. Inst. / / / / / /
Flint, MI 48504 el...@nova.gmi.edu /________/ / / / /
Eric Lease Morgan
The world isn't fair, nor is it equal.
I believe the folks at the University of Minnessota are justified in
charging a licencing fee. Determining what that fee is and how it is
collected is a very difficult problem, but the idea of a fee itself is
not unrealistic in today's information environment.
Libraries have been faced with this sort of problem for more than a
decade with the advent of information providers like DIALOG, UnCover,
BRS, Orbit, STN, OCLC, publishers in general, and to a lesser extent,
services like Compuserv, and America Online. Libraries have been expected
to provide information from these service at no costs to the users.
"Libraries are suppose to be free."
Libraries (and other institutions of higher learning) are in the
"business" of education and research. They provide the means to collect,
organize, store, create, and disseminate information. Gopher servers and
clients make these processes easily possible for electronic information.
Providing the software for free to institutions of higher education for
the purposes of accessing information is laudable. The same holds true
for things like perl, NCSA telnet, and gcc.
As a librarian, the concept of equal and free access to information runs
deep in my soul. Unfortunately, the scholarly communications process and
services like the ones listed above make this concept a dream in today's
economic environment. Information is not free. It never was, and it never
will be.
The world isn't fair, nor is it equal. I don't think it is fair that
scholars must reliquish their copyrights in order to publish an article.
I don't think it's fair that information services like the ones listed
above should charge as much as the market can bear rather than their true
costs.
In my opinion, the University of Minnessota is playing by the rules of
today's game, and I am surprised they are not charging a licencing fee to
everybody who uses their software.
Eric Lease Morgan, Systems Librarian
North Carolina State University Libraries
Tor Iver Wilhelmsen
- Tor Wilhelmsen
--
"I'm a Derek, and Dereks don't run!" - Derek in 'Bad Taste'
tor...@pvv.unit.no
Standard disclaimer should apply to this, I guess...
"Reality is a poor escapism for people who cannot handle roleplaying" - Me
Conrad C. Nobili
> connection to the Global Internet
> pay to connect or pay for information
> 7.5% of the total amount charged for the service
I don't see a lower limit on the rates. Looks free as rates approach zero.
Am I confused?
Conrad C. Nobili N1LPM Conrad...@Harvard.EDU Harvard University OIT
Dan Ellison
>In article <1993Mar11.0...@spdcc.com>, rai...@spdcc.com (Rob
>Raisch) wrote:
>>
>> I just received the current gopher license agreement from UMinn, and to
>> say the very least, I am very disappointed. This is not the agreement
>> "that supports the community" that I had expected, and in point of fact,
>> is designed to punish commercial providers who wish to merely provide
>> non-commercial information to the Internet.
>>
>UMinn is attempting to make money off of software they have developed at
>THEIR expense. I suppose you'd have Microsoft give away their code for free
>as well? UMinn has been more than generous IMHO by giving away gopher
>servers, clients, and associated specs for the past couple of years. Just
>because they are an educational institution doesn't reduce the value (or
>cost) of their intellectual effort in developing their gopher software
>(versus a commercial software house, for example). Why *should* you expect
>it for free if you're a commercial site?
I don't believe that the mission of Microsoft et. al. is to impart practical
knowledge related to computer science (which I believe is pretty close to
the actual mandate of a university.) All too often I see universities that
feel they need to commercialize the efforts of their graduate students (do
you think that these students will get any of the proceeds that could be
generated from this software licensing?) Sure, if some company wants to
develope a commercial release of the software and sell it to its customers
then I can see where a licensing fee would be appropriate (ala X11R5 from
MIT.) However, as the original author points out, if there is no charge
associated with accessing the information that is available via the gopher
server then why should there be a fee for operating it just because your
domain happens to end in .com? Gopher could be a major breakthrough in
internet computing but not if it has these kinds of dollars attached to it.
I could even see a license for a commercial enterprise such as Compuserve
since they charge their users for connecting. But a free access gopher
server should be free IMHO. Surely MN's tax base is not so small that the
universities are forced to generate revenues based on graduate studies....
>> Mark, Paul Yen, Fahad, et. al., congratulations. You have may have succeeded
>> in accomplishing something which it takes a large corporation years of
>> practice and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to do:
>>
>> You've killed the product before it ever leaves your door.
>If you feel the cost is too much to bear, write your own gopher server and
>clients. The specification is there, and it's not that difficult to do. In
>fact, you could probably do it for less than one year's license fee in
>labor costs. After that's done, see how you feel about giving it away to
>commercial users. Would you be as generous as UMinn?
What if an employee of such a commercial site decides of his own free will
that he wants to put up a no charge gopher server? If it is administered
by an individual but operates on a commercial companies equipment is it a
commercial product or just an enhancement to the overal gopherspace? I
suppose the next step will be Gopher Inc. Universities are not money making
organizations (or they shouldn't be since your and my tax dollars are what
is supposed to support them.)
Quick, somebody get the fire extinguisher B^)
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| Dan Ellison, Network Spec - Computing Affairs, SIU-C |
| Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, IL 62901 |
| FAX: (618) 453-3459 - PHONE: (618) 453-6149 |
Rob Raisch
>a) this is a license agreement. In general, such license agreements
>are written on paper, not on stone. They're malleable, and can be used
>as a starting point for discussions.
Yes. We need to reply to UMinn with what we consider an appropriate
response. We are in the process of developing a "reply."
>d) If a subterranean GNU is developed, with the "gnu license"
>attached, then there will be other people squawking because they can't
>use it for profit. They'll say "I'm a nonprofit, yet I have to sell.
>Can't I be an exception?" or "I just want to recoup my investment."
>Or "why can't I use it? It's public domain, so I have a legal right to
>use it any way I want."
A "GNU" gopher would not have any proscription against commercial
use. The GNU license states that "derivative works" must be
distributed with the GNU license. There is no language in the
GNU license regarding the use of a GNU-touched product. It would
be saying that GNU-Emacs could never be used to write French.
C'est L'Absurd.
No one can tell me to give information I provide to the network
away for free; no matter what the vehicle.
>e) I suspect that UMN's lawyers drew up this agreement with minimal
>input from the Gopherfolx,
Through conversations with various people within UMinn, I have
found that no lawyers or even the U finance committee were
contacted in the creation of this license. No one within
UMinn was aware of this "contract".This is the work of one
department.
Peter N Lewis
files and uuencoded files, as well as name mapping and links to other
locations thru the use of a simple .gophermap file which can rename
files in listings, or hide them as well as providing links to other
servers. Its a perl script, so you'll need perl installed, but you
really should have perl installed anyway.
If you have a Mac, you can also get my FTPd program which will provide
you with a gopher server on a Mac with MacTCP (its shareware $10, thats
the difference between a one morning job like this perl script and a 6
month job like FTPd).
I'm sure this perl script can be expanded as much as anyone cares to do
it - I won't be working on it any further, so someone else had better
take over if there is any interest. As for clients, someone else will
have to do their own, I use TurboGopher on my Mac - if the licensing fee
for that is as interesting then I may well write my own client for that
too.
Obviously, it doesn't support the Gopher+ extensions, but from what I've
seen of them, thats a good thing, they turn an elegantly simple protocol
into a horror.
The following script (which you can also pick up from
ncrpda.curtin.edu.au (gopher to it, its running there...)) is completely
free for any use, yes, if you want you can even sell it.
Enjoy,
Peter.
#!/bin/perl
# gopherd.perl - Copyright Peter N Lewis, Mar 1993
# This script may be used and modified and distributed in any
# way you see fit as long as my name stays at the top somewhere
# and you add your changes and name somewhere in here.
# This is a trivial gopher server, it makes a directory tree available
# and allows links to other directories, and thats it.
# Its entirely free, you can do whatever you want with it, including
# sell it if y think you can get away with it.
# To use, put a line in your inetd like this:
# gopher stream tcp nowait ftp /usr/etc/gopherd.perl gopherd /home/ftp
$root="/home/ftp";
$root=$ARGV[0] if $ARGV[0];
($name, $aliases, $ourport) = getservbyname('gopher','tcp');
$ourport=70 unless $port;
chop($ourhost = `hostname`);
($ourhost, $aliases, $type, $len, $thisaddr) = gethostbyname($ourhost);
$line=<STDIN>;
chop $line;
chop $line;
$line="1" unless $line;
$line= (split('\t',$line))[0];
($type,$name)=unpack("a a*",$line);
if ($name) {
$path="$root/$name";
} else {
$path=$root;
}
$die=0;
$die="Invalid Line \"$line\" (contains ..)" if $path =~ m+\.\.+;
$die="Invalid Line \"$line\" (contains //)" if $path =~ m+//+;
$die="Invalid Line \"$line\" ($root doesn't start with /)" unless $path =~ m+^/+;
$die="Invalid Line \"$line\" (not a valid type)" unless $type =~ m+[016]+;
if (! $die) {
if ($type eq '1') {
$die = "Couldn't open directory" unless opendir(DIR,$path);
if (! $die) {
@mapping=();
if (open(GOPHERMAP,"<$path/.gophermap")) {
@mapping=<GOPHERMAP>;
foreach (@mapping) {
chop;
}
close(GOPHERMAP);
}
@output=();
foreach (@mapping) {
if (/^\t(.*)/) { @output=(@output, $1); }
}
while ($entry= readdir(DIR)) {
($char)=unpack("c",$entry);
if ($char != 46) {
if (-d "$path/$entry") {
$stype="1";
} elsif (-B _) {
$stype="6";
} else {
$stype="0";
}
$sname=$entry;
$spath="$path/$entry";
$spath=$1 if $spath =~ m+$root/(.*)+;
$shost=$ourhost;
$sport=$ourport;
$putout=0;
foreach (@mapping) {
@map=split(/\t/);
if ($entry eq $map[0]) {
if ($map[1]) {
($mtype, $mname)=unpack("a a*",$map[1]);
$stype=$mtype unless $mtype eq "X";
$sname=$mname if $mname;
$spath=$map[2] if $map[2];
$shost=$map[3] if $map[3];
$sport=$map[4] if $map[4];
} else {
$stype="X";
}
}
}
$putout="$stype$sname\t$stype$spath\t$shost\t$sport";
@output = (@output, $putout) unless $stype eq "X";
}
}
sub byname {
($at, $an)=unpack("a a*",$a);
($bt, $bn)=unpack("a a*",$b);
$an =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/;
$bn =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/;
$an cmp $bn;
}
@output = sort byname @output;
foreach (@output) { print "$_\r\n"; }
closedir(DIR);
}
} else {
if ($type eq '0') {
$die="Couldn't open file" unless open (FILE, "<$path");
} else {
$die="Couldn't open uuencoded file" unless open (FILE, "uuencode $name <$p
ath|");
}
if (! $die) {
while (<FILE>) {
chop;
print "$_\r\n";
}
close (FILE);
}
}
}
if ($die) {
print "0Gopher: $die\r\n";
}
print(".\r\n");
--
_______________________________________________________________________
Peter N Lewis <pe...@ncrpda.curtin.edu.au> Ph: +61 9 368 2055
Jurgen Botz
>originally developed and a lot of other users have improved, enhanced,
>expanded, and standardized upon.
Correction: UMinn is attempting to make money off software that a
bunch of clueless novices with no experience in client/server and
distributed computing or Unix programming cobbled together from
existing free software, and which was then improved and enhanced,
expanded and standardized upon by lots of other folks. Sigh.
--
Jurgen Botz, jb...@mtholyoke.edu |As for getting a working "df -i" on Solaris,
South Hadley, MA, USA |your best bet is to upgrade to SunOS 4.x" /r$
Jurgen Botz
>Well here it is, a mornings work.
Hahaha... a big cheer for you! Throughout my reading this thread right
now I was thinking: "screw this... I'm just going to sit down and write
a Perl gopher tonight." Well, no more need for that, although I'll hack
with yours some.
>Obviously, it doesn't support the Gopher+ extensions, but from what I've
>seen of them, thats a good thing, they turn an elegantly simple protocol
>into a horror.
Yup! The sure death of Gopher+ is one of the best things about this
UMN Gopher license deal... but I don't think the protocol would have
ever made it anyway. Why? Peter sums it up... it turns an elegantly
simple protocol into a horror.
Folks... the reason for gopher's wild success isn't the UMN folks's
programming prowess... it's the trivial simplicity of the protocol.
The beauty of gopher is precisely that anybody can write a server (or
client with not much of a user interface) in a high enough level
language in a matter of hours. Not only that... but the 3 hour server
is even going to be fully compliant with the protocol (it's the
simplicity, stupid!) and THAT'S what makes gopher so widely
implemented.
Don't mourn for the UMN gopher... the code was a nightmare anyway. Go
forth now and multiply the number of available gopher implementations.
michael jensen
>In article <1993Mar13.0...@cujo.curtin.edu.au> pe...@cujo.curtin.edu.au (Peter N Lewis) writes:
>>Well here it is, a mornings work.
>Folks... the reason for gopher's wild success isn't the UMN folks's
>programming prowess... it's the trivial simplicity of the protocol.
>The beauty of gopher is precisely that anybody can write a server (or
>client with not much of a user interface) in a high enough level
>language in a matter of hours. Not only that... but the 3 hour server
>is even going to be fully compliant with the protocol (it's the
>simplicity, stupid!) and THAT'S what makes gopher so widely
>implemented.
Well, this may be true, that it's trivial, easy as pie, etc. to write
a gopher server, client, and other things. For you, with your
expertise. There are lots of things that are trivial for me
that aren't so trivial for you. I suspect that you've paid auto
mechanics, plumbers, and the like for work that is trivial for them.
For many, having a contractual agreement that includes some level of
support and technical assistance is worth paying money for, especially
if that money is used for continued development of a worthwhile
product. The Gopher+ system, from what I've seen, looks promising, and
provides tools and capabilities that the simple gopher simply doesn't
provide. Unless you're willing to provide telephone and e-mail support
for a package you hack together--for free--then there's no need to be
snide about UMN's attempt to find a way to continue doing what they've
been doing.
>Jurgen Botz, jb...@mtholyoke.edu |As for getting a working "df -i" on Solaris,
>South Hadley, MA, USA |your best bet is to upgrade to SunOS 4.x" /r$
Michael Jensen .. jen...@unlinfo.unl.edu .. standard disclaimers apply.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Democracy in the electronic age requires a nation of watchdogs,
each of us unfenced and unleashed." -- B. McDonnell
James Powell
> scholarly journals. It would be a great boon to academia if all
> scholarly journals could be accessed with the same protocols so a
> student or researcher would only need to learn to use one type of
> client to access the "electronic library" of the future. Today it
> seems rather unlikely that this library will use a gopher protocol.
> Scholarly journals certainly can't afford to pay 7.5% of their gross
> receipts to the Minnesota gopher team, not to mention the $5K
> annually. Most likely we will end up with several incompatible
> proprietary schemes for accessing electronic journals. Or maybe WWW
> will start to take off. Electronic publishers are very interested in
> SGML anyway. This is a golden oportunity for the WWW people.
Right now we publish five scholarly journals (whole issues, abstracts or
data supplements) electronically that we make available for no cost. We
have a gopher server set up, but I am tempted to take it down rather than
become too committed to gopher, due to this license. We already have a
www server up and it would not be difficult to switch. We had been
discussing the possibility of using gopher as a fee based service, without
realizing there was such a licensing agreement. Gopher is defintely out
now, unless this license becomes more reasonable or someone gives birth to
a GNU gopher! If X Mosaic gets ported to Windows, gopher is a gonner.
Even the NeXTSTEP gopher client pales in comparison to X Mosaic for ease
of use. Try it yourself: gopher borg.lib.vt.edu 70 and then use X Mosaic
to access http://borg.lib.vt.edu:80/ for comparison. (Okay, so one of the
links is a gopher, but this is a temporary situation since I wanted to get
something on the Web quickly).
--
James Powell >>> Library Automation, University Libraries, VPI&SU
>>> JPO...@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU
>>> jpo...@borg.lib.vt.edu - NeXTMail welcome here
>>> Owner of VPIEJ-L, a discussion list for Electronic
>>> Journals
Jurgen Botz
>jb...@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
>>Folks... the reason for gopher's wild success isn't the UMN folks's
>>programming prowess... it's the trivial simplicity of the protocol.
>Well, this may be true, that it's trivial, easy as pie, etc. to write
>a gopher server, client, and other things. For you, with your
>expertise. There are lots of things that are trivial for me
>that aren't so trivial for you. I suspect that you've paid auto
>mechanics, plumbers, and the like for work that is trivial for them.
My point wasn't that everybody should write their own server... my
point is that the success of gopher is the result of the fact that
the protocol's simplicity resulted in a lot of implementations of
it. Look at the counter-example... how come nobody is using X.500?
>For many, having a contractual agreement that includes some level of
>support and technical assistance is worth paying money for, especially
>if that money is used for continued development of a worthwhile
>product. The Gopher+ system, from what I've seen, looks promising, and
>provides tools and capabilities that the simple gopher simply doesn't
>provide.
*shrug*... and X.500 provides *lots* of tools Gopher+ doesn't provide.
So do WWW and Prospero, two distributed infosystems that are more
realistic than X.500 and actually in common use.
>Unless you're willing to provide telephone and e-mail support
>for a package you hack together--for free--then there's no need to be
>snide about UMN's attempt to find a way to continue doing what they've
>been doing.
Does UMN provide telephone support for gopher? Really? Well, if
they do they certainly have every right to charge for it... but I
don't believe that's what's going on here, either.
--