[idn] FTP history

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

At 12:43 PM 5/27/2002 -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
>   While FTP apparently lends itself to "direct UI", it
>was never intended that way.

John,

I have a pretty clear recollection that when FTP first came out the folks 
who wrote the spec honestly expected to be able to sit at a TIP, telnet 
over to an FTP server, and type commands that would effect file transfers.

I even have a vague recollection that this was used to send data to a 
printer attached to the TIP on another port.


>For example, use of "TYPE ASCII" transfers requires translation
>between the character set of the sender and network ASCII and
>translation by the receiver from network ASCII to local
>character set and formats.

Not if the receiver can process network ASCII directly, as some did.


>   Even when those hosts use ASCII, the
>translations must accomodate, e.g., conversion of end of line
>conventions.

Not if they supported CRLF directly, as some did.  In fact, that was why 
CRLF was chosen and end of line, rather than a single character.  A single 
character would have made lexical analysis notably simpler.


>But the protocol is no more designed as a "direct UI" than SMTP

SMTP came around 10 years later.

However, the original MAIL command in FTP was explicitly intended to permit 
direct typing over a telnet connection.  And it was in fact used that 
way.  (That was why there was a distinction between MAIL and MLFL which did 
the data transfer over a separate FTP data connection.)

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:dave@tribalwise.com>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
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