Mercury

[William Casarin]

Hey Phil,

Phil Leblanc <philanc at gmail.com> writes:
> Hi all,
>
> I have very recently discovered Gemini, so I am late at the party, but
> very excited by the Gemini concept and philosophy.
>
> At the same time, I am a bit disappointed by the mandatory use of TLS
> in the protocol. It seems _so_ at odds with the overall philosophy and
> simplicity of Gemini...  But I _do_ understand that there is momentum
> behind TLS usage.

same and agreed

> Looking for discussion about this TLS issue, I found in a message by
> Petite Abeille [1] a link to the Mercury document [2] by Solderpunk.
>
> I don't know when it was published and couldn't find a discussion
> about Mercury (i.e. Gemini without TLS)
>
> What I would like to know:
>
> * is the Mercury document an old document that has been already
> discussed and the concept discarded?  (any link to the discussion?)

If you search the geminiverse for mercury you'll see a few comments. I
found that there were mostly negative responses toward Mercury, but then
again it's a pretty small sample size.

> * is the concept still "alive"?  is the document still "open for comments"?

I don't see why there couldn't be another ecosystem around mercury. I
picture clients eventually supporting a suite of protocols, such as
gopher, mercury and gemini all at once.

> * are there Gemininauts interested in Mercury?

very much so, TLS is the only thing holding me back from publishing
content on Gemini. Mercury is something I was hoping more people would
pick up interest in.

> * are there clients and servers targeting both Gemini and Mercury?
> (i.e. the Gemini concept with and without TLS)

I haven't seen any but would love that idea!


Cheers,
Will