Gemini file downloading client - a thought experiment

[acdw]

On 2020-11-04 (Wednesday) at 01:25, Katarina Eriksson <gmym at coopdot.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, I agree. There are plenty of other protocols to choose from which 
> are better suited for transferring large files. But that's beside the 
> point.

I'd say that's precisely the point -- Gemini is built for the serving of text files.. It'd be like (pardon the HTTP-only metaphor) if you decided to tweet out the contents of /War and Peace/ -- you could do it, but why would you want to?

> 
> The purpose of this thought experiment is to find a use case where you 
> can't work within the constraints and have to add a content length 
> header.
> 
> My expectation is that there are no such use case, certainly not one 
> worth braking compatibility for, but I'm keeping an open mind.

I agree that there's not enough of a use case for a Content-Length: header -- see above on the purpose of Gemini.  I mean, people can host whatever they'd like (I love the Konpeito mixtapes as much as anyone, for example), but I don't think anyone should *expect* to easily download large files from Gemini capsules.

> 
> New people will join and ask for a content length header again in a few 
> months. It has happened before, more than once, in this very young 
> mailing list. If we would have a supporting specification which deals 
> with this, we would have something to point at.

There was some talke about adding something addressing Content-Length in the FAQ, which I 1000% support.

-- 
~ acdw
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