🚀 go-pugleaf

ggm@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (George Michaelson) writes:
: 
: I see an increasing amount of stuff being done using finger as a
: method of distributed information-getting.

finger is a very easy to understand protocol, clinets are cheap and
ubiquitous, servers equally so.  unlike x.500 and other "big" projects
with real backing you don't need to get special funding to be able
to afford a finger-based server.  so I think it's a thing you'll need
to deal with.
 
: I would prefer
: to see an explicit 'distributed information' protocol to replace finger
: being used for:
: 
: 	email address lookup
: 	directory service call
: 	generalised information checks

A number of people are using gopher (viz. alt.gopher, wiht a vote for
comp.infosystems.gopher in progress) as a distributed information
system.  The protocol per se is very simple, and in fact you can
point a gopher client at a finger-based service and have it work the
first time.  

gopher has had its own share of security pitfalls, mostly regarding
holes in telnet based gateways, but for a general lookup and information
scheme it's pretty good.

(followups to alt.gopher, see also boombox.micro.umn.edu:/pub/gopher/
if you don't get alt groups)

--Ed