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I've been reading about ideas for "Gopher 2.0", and a lot of it centers around
modernization of the protocol. Crypto, changing how URIs are implemented...

I really don't have much to say about it, other than that I ask people really
think about backwards compatibility as well. Something that has people riled
about the modern web is the forced nature of newer features, and the lack of
"graceful degradation" in the case of older machines and browsers trying to
access a website.

Despite what the likes of StatCounter and the like will show, there's still a
number of people running on older devices and OSes that don't get to access
information on websites because they lock themselves behind feature walls
(feature-checking the browser), or because they deny access to browsers that
can't handle the newest TLS standards. And of course, by doing so, those
browsers aren't even counted, so the numbers are about as accurate as a Donald
Trump tweet.

Gopher has the ability to make many older computers and devices very viable for
those who prefer using those retro machines. I mean, how cool is it that we can
use Gopher on an old IMB XT? Or even an Amiga, Atari, or Commodore machine? I
can even hook up a classic Mac like my iMac G3 (OS 9.2.1), fire up Netscape
Navigator or Classilla, and read the latest phlog posts from gopherholes like
Tomasino's moku-pona[1], or SDF's own listings[2].

In my eyes, Gopher's simplicity is in the idea that it "just works". It doesn't
have the more intense requirements that the web has acting as a barrier of
entry. It's effectively FTP turned into a browsable state.

I'm not saying we /shouldn't/ make a more modern gopher, but I do ask that
people not turn it into another iteration of Google's Web, where features are
forced--e.g. force SSL or you're punished because "we" say so. Encryption is a
good thing, but there are those who don't see a point in encrypting everything,
/even/ to stop hypothetical man-in-the-middle attacks, when it also means that
we'd be forced to stop using what we enjoy using because of those features.

The simple capability of being able to say "encrypt the connection if
/possible/" instead of "encrypt the connection, disconnect if unable", much
like the separation of 'http' and 'https', is all that's neccessary to fill
that need. Let the user have options.

Just something to think about.

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[1]: gopher://gopher.black/1/moku-pona/
[2]: gopher://sdf.org/1/phlogs