Re: Call for Community Feedback: Retiring IETF FTP Service

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 11/18/20 6:00 AM, Roman Danyliw wrote:

> As I responded to Toerless [1], the primary users of FTP (by volume) don't appear to be disadvantaged:

The issue is not about the "primary" users (by volume). (Remember, 
*traffic volume is not an indicator of importance*.) This is an 
accessibility issue.   Would you consider it acceptable to deny access 
to IETF documents to sight- or hearing-impaired persons because "the 
primary users... don't appear to be disadvantaged"?   If not, why is it 
acceptable to deny access to those who cannot use crypto?

I don't think rsync is an acceptable substitute for FTP (valuable though 
rsync is) for several reasons: (a) it's not that widely known and mostly 
known in the Unix/Linux worlds; (b) people looking for a way to access 
individual files may not stumble on rsync because it's generally a 
mirroring solution; (c) it's not really designed to permit single file 
access even though it can be used that way; (d) a lot of people don't 
know that rsync access to IETF documents even exists or how to use it, 
and (given that http access is already cut off) may have no way of 
discovering it; (e) support for rsync is not integrated into browsers 
(though if browser vendors are also crippling ftp and http URLs that 
point may be moot).

More broadly, I keep seeing examples of people arguing for restrictions 
on how IETF resources may be accessed, based on the assumption that 
/everyone should use IETF resources the way most people use IETF 
resources/.  Trying to force everyone to be alike is deeply offensive 
and counterproductive to IETF's goals.   IETF works best when it has 
wide participation.

Keith