Re: Call for Community Feedback: Retiring IETF FTP Service

[Stephen Farrell <[e-mail]>]

I'm generally ok with us turning off FTP and don't onsider
it that big a deal either way.

However, I have to say most of the arguments for and against
doing that I've seen in this thread are weak to very weak
and some I'd consider just bogus or exaggerated. That said,
this cost/benefit argument for maintaining the service seems
worth considering:

On 17/11/2020 20:30, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> is that having a second
> or third way to access information is extremely useful when things go
> very wrong.  If that happens even once over the next 20 years then the
> tiny cost of keeping FTP running will be repaid in full very quickly.

I guess a lot would have to go wrong for a sustained period
for FTP to save the day, but I could just about imagine it
happening. It's not quite movie-plot time but fracturing in
the root stores causing HTTPS to not work everywhere, plus
some SSH bugginess that affected most clients and broke
rsync/SSH might do it. And as we've seen this year, now
and then stuff does hit the fan.

I don't know if it's a sufficiently strong argument but it
is one I'd not considered.

Cheers,
S.