Netscape is working to cease this.) (Update: may very well be a results of "severely overworked programmers": Netscape's gopher is back and getting higher on a regular basis!) And mathematical formulae seem to point that the speed benefits of placing your complete non-commercial WWW back on gopher could increase access speeds by over 10,000%! Is it time for a brand new Renaissance on the internet, to carry again the promise of the early years?? gopher://, aka The Bring Back Gopher Campaign, mygirls.me is a grass-roots motion to make this occur. What we'd like: - Modern Gopher servers (eventual purpose is for an Apache Gopher server) - Old gopher shoppers recompiled for modern purchasers, and distributed with them by default (Apple assist)(http://athene.dnsalias.org/gopher) New: Mozilla assist! (http://www.mozilla.org) - Investigate the "plugin risk": the last Gopher server was ported to FreeBSD; developer says a launch of the VR Gopher supply code (nonetheless proprietary!) may give Gopher a future as a plugin... - A gopher-browser capable of receiving gopher-streams for audio and video - Campaign focal level with mailing-listing: now dwell, see gopher://gopher.browser.org/ or also http://gopher.browser.org/ - Gopher-appropriate multimedia streams for television stations We will do it! Campaign hyperlinks and information ----------------------- gopher://gopher.browser.org/ http://gopher.browser.org/ gopher://gopher.heatdeath.org/ New Gopher Developer's Mailing List: put "subscribe" in subject and mail gopher-request@complete.org http://www.complete.org/mailinglists/archives/ (archives right here) Point of Gopher Campaign dialogue: 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.floodgap.com (WAS gopher://gopher.ptloma.edu/ Prime example of the corporatization of educational establishments!) Institution that invented it retaining flame alive (Univ of Minnesota): gopher://gopher.tc.umn.edu/ (Some hope's left?) First gopher weblog-resource page: gopher://gopher.metafilter.com/ (must push for gopher.weblogs.com) Gopher newsgroups: news:comp.infosystems.gopher (basic) news:alt.web.services (level of contact) news:alt.folklore.computers (knowledgebase) information:soc.tradition.web (history) news:soc.culture.usenet (talk) information:alt.internet.supplier (demand assist at isp level) news:soc.culture.www (competitive) news:netscape.public.normal (enemy) Gophersearch: Veronica-2 gopher://gopher.ptloma.edu:70/1/v2 Jughead gopher.utah.edu Gopher chatroom: odili.internet/chat/ New tasks & software program ----------------------- GNOME graphic gopher! http://www.hobbiton.org/~pflipp/software/gnopher.en.html http://www.hobbiton.org/~pflipp/software program/gnopher-screenshot.png Hot new gopher shopper (Python bundle!): http://opop.nols.com/proggie/forg-latest.tar.gz UMN gopher/gopherd, GPL Debian!: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/gopher.html http://packages.debian.org/unstable/internet/gopherd.html Gopherd mirror (1997): http://www.rocklinux.org/folks/ripclaw/software/gopher WWWeb to gopher gateway cgi! http://www.heatdeath.org:8003/webgopher/tree.jsp (javascript) Modern gopher hackers: http://athene.owl.de/gopher A code neighborhood: gopher://moo.ca New working shopper in dbXML: http://www.dbxmlgroup.com/ Overview of shoppers 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 information (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/web/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-period) Gopher spec: http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu/rfc/rfc1689.html A quick 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 transfer against gopher ----------------------- Who killed it? (Post-WWW secret historical past): http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rohit/IEEE-L7-http-gopher.html 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/colleges/WCC/ist/shavens/7/forums/forum3/messages/2.html Writing on the wall: Netscape Inc. making an attempt to kill gopher (circa November, 2000) http://www.deja.com/=dnc/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=693812882 Anecdotes, tales, fun ----------------------- Uplifting gopher story: Connor Sexton writes, "I remember when I was 9 (im 14 now) I used to be using Gopher with my dad on my previous 486. I remember how cool it was to know that this information was on the market on another computer, being accessed by different people.. There was a wealth of knowledge so overwhelming I didnt know what to do with it. As a young baby, I used to be extremely fascinated by Space, and that i requested my dad to kind in 'Learn how to be and Astronaut' and i bought an essay with that matter. I was SO comfortable, I was amazed at what was happening. Today, I take advantage of the internet and witness the horrible commercialization of an exquisite place. The far reaching palms of capatalism leave no stone unturned. I am willing that can assist you pull this collectively in any approach I can. I'd love to see the reinstatement of Goper." More Gopher ideas: Lawrence Rhodes writes, "'Point your Gopher to...' I remember getting excited when nearly anything adopted these phrases. It was an indication of progress. Or of the impending state of data connectedness we all now expertise. Now it seems so quaint. I miss it so not for the underpinning expertise (which can or might not have been superior) but for the feeling that the world of knowledge know-how, indeed the world itself, was advancing quickly enough to permit the widespread man access to the world's nice storehouses of knowledge. Of couse, in retrospect, I suppose if I had thought about the frequent man's infatigable starvation for porn and nonstop commerce and the myriad other forms of dangerous style, I might have seen the dangers of the banal. Indeed Gopher represented a less complicated, extra naive time." Sober warning: Kris Kennaway writes, "... since there are apparently still people using gopherd, somebody actually ought to fix the remote buffer overflows within the server which were reported a while back on bugtraq (search on www.securityfocus.com for the main points). An up to date version was released after the primary one was found, but then there were more reported and no new model was released. ... it is form of disturbing to think that just about all of what stays of the outdated gopher community is probably vulnerable to a distant root exploit." Co-author of Internet Gopher protocol speaks: Bob Alberti writes (partial letter), "When in the daybreak of the Third Millennium people, misguided or simply ignorant, are still using 'anonymous' FTP for file servers; and as mobile phone builders reinvent the wheel by whittling HTML right down to more compact protocols somewhat than building upon what exists; then it is evident that higher understanding and awareness of the Gopher and Gopher+ protocol is sorely wanted. "FTP is a 1960's-period solution designed to speak 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 standard overloading of the protocol for 'nameless' FTP service is an instance of pace and patchwork overcoming design limitations. FTP is notoriously insecure, requiring in many instances bidirectional firewall holes for help, and speaking in cleartext. FTP can be used to break its own server, and FTP can not serve varieties, and only serves banners with clumsy patchwork. "Gopher servers can share filesystems rapidly and simply. Gopher allows for 'cap' files to modify the appearance of the directories being served. It allows for cgi-type scripts, kind submission, and a number of languages. And Gopher simply overlays existing FTP service directories, offering freedom of choice. Gopher+ was a bridge spanning the 1200-baud world of its existence with the 56K future only some years forward. When a extreme communications bottleneck exists between the server and the shopper, then the quick, clean and environment friendly Gopher+ protocol offers a possible answer. "But Gopher+ will profit from better publicity: ignorance of the Gopher protocol doesn't serve the greater Internet group: as with every highly effective software, Gopher service can pose a safety vulnerability, especially when inexpertly implemented. And so as to provide commercial providers, Gopher servers with better encryption and security options should be developed. "Wireless communications developers can be properly-advised to look at this venerable Internet protocol when in search of methods to speak with wireless and handheld devices reminiscent of PDAs and cell telephones. The Gopher+ protocol might be a quick, efficient, standardized open-source resolution to the issue of handheld purchasers." REQUEST: URLs for any CGI Gopher to Web gateways, for the gopher:// impaired? Send your gopher tales! Just Gopher It! Originally at http://www.scn.org/~bkarger/gopher-manifest/ and now archived at http://27.org/gopher-manifesto/.