[gopher] Re: Fate of the Protocol (was Re: Gopherness)

[Cameron Kaiser <spectre@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Matt.  Gopher is not going to "regain a foothold".  It will continue
> to get more and more marginal and no change to it will slow the slide,
> much less reverse it.  http rose and gopher sank.  Everything gopher
> does, www can do and much more, except slimming bandwidth, but very
> few care about that in a DSL/Cable world.

I don't think Gopher is doomed to continue its decline, it just will
never regain its heyday. However, the fact that retro is now "in," people
like the simplicity and it's trivially easy to write support for it will
mean that the protocol will always maintain a certain amount of interest.
So I don't predict it ever disappearing completely, nor becoming totally
irrelevant or useless. Even if I were the only Gopher server left, I'd
maintain it because it was fun. And I know others here feel the same way,
so there will always be some sort of gopherspace, and since I like to eat
my own dog food I will continue to make some effort to make it useful in
my own little modest section o fit.

-- 
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser@xxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Nasty habits/Here to stay! -- Oingo Boingo ---------------------------------