Proposal about content-size and hash

[marc]

Hi

>   Ah yes ... this is something I proposed back in August of 2019:
> 
> 	gemini://gemini.conman.org/gRFC/0003
> 
>   Solderpunk has always rejected it when it comes up, mumbling "simplicity"
> and "not HTTP again" under his breath.  Another issue with this is that the
> server might not know how big a given response is---think dynamic output
> (via CGI/SCGI or similar).  It would have to be optional in any case.
> 
> > 2. Define an additional endpoint for retrieving meta info.
> 
>   I also proposed something along these lines in August of 2019:
> 
> 	https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2019/000016.html
> 
>   Read the thread to see how that turned out.


The list has been full of little proposals to add just one
more protocol element to make things look a bit more like http
or one more tag to make things look a bit more like html.

In a way this is understandable - the features of http+html
are well known, and part of ones mental problem solving kit, and
everybody uses gemini a bit differently, so when encountering
a limitation, suggesting bits of http+html is easy...

But (and I don't speak for solderpunk) I view gemini as a
reaction against http/html - the thesis is that there might
have technical aspects of that stack which has made surveillance
capitalism easier. So I don't see gemini as http+html lite - I
see it as its antithesis.

If people want to see gemini evolve, don't have it converge
on http+html, have it work towards a better world.

For instance: In this thread people worry about partially
downloaded data - we don't know if a gemini document has
been transferred completely. We also have the problem that
people are writing gemini to web gateways but other people
would like to keep their content in gemini-space only.
And then Emery Hemingway astutely points out that the modern
web has forgotten about caching and replication.

So: If (and it is a big if) there extension proposals to be
made, how about an (optional) footer in the document markup
(not the transfer protocol) which improves on the mean:

  "(c) Joe Soap, all rights reserved"

to something which states under what conditions that document
might be distributed, if it is a cachable static page or one which
updates and who should be credited as author. There are many
parts of the small web which contain a snippet of valuable
information, and often it is unclear how to rescue those
if the original site disappears. A line like

  -- CC-SA: Joe Soap

for creative commons, share alike or

  -- GMI,DYN,NOC: Joe Soap

for gemini space only, dynamic content not to be cached, or just

  --

for end of document. So this mechanism then solves multiple
problems (I think /robots.txt is an ugly afterthought) and
opens the way for people to cache/curate/remix/reuse each others
ideas. The -- could be a different tag, but -- is in common
use to denote a signature, so a footer, already.

However, having just written all that, it is still good to
consider the following:

  "Perfection isn't achieved when nothing more can be added, it
   is achieved when nothing more can be taken away"

                                - An impressive author and aviator

regards

marc