opus5: add the interview about geomidae - tgtimes - The Gopher Times
HTML git clone git://bitreich.org/tgtimes git://enlrupgkhuxnvlhsf6lc3fziv5h2hhfrinws65d7roiv6bfj7d652fid.onion/tgtimes
DIR Log
DIR Files
DIR Refs
DIR Tags
DIR README
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DIR commit 7074490129a0a4fa87d65ececb1437421a924bac
DIR parent 6c63204f00228b67a12201fcb7f4b44bb52237eb
HTML Author: Josuah Demangeon <me@josuah.net>
Date: Fri, 13 May 2022 19:16:34 +0200
opus5: add the interview about geomidae
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.SH 20h
-New geomyidae release
+20h Presents: Geomyidae
.
+.QP
+This project existed since a while, and kept improving.
+In this interview with 20h, he shows us what Geomyidae's got under the hood.
+.
+.QP
+What is Geomyidae?
+.PP
+Geomyidae is a Unix/Linux daemon/service serving the gopher protocol.
+.
+.QP
+So what is gopher?
+.PP
+Gopher here is an internet protocol, which was first developed at the University of Minnesota.
+After its short success, it declined, but is now striving again to be used for its simplicity and hierarchy.
+For better visual display of your gopher experience, use something like links, lynx or sacc.
+Those are gopher clients.
+.
+.QP
+How does Geomyidae help with getting started with gopher?
+.PP
+The installation of Geomyidae is very simple.
+You can setup your Geomyidae right away:
+.DS
+git clone git://bitreich.org/geomyidae
+cd geomyidae
+make
+./geomyidae -b $(pwd) -p 7070 &
+curl -s gopher://localhost:7070
+.DE
+Yes, curl supports gopher!
+And it supports gopher and TLS too!
+.
+.QP
+Are there many alternatives among gopher daemons?
+.PP
+Yes, there are many.
+Some are there due to historical reasons, others have gone out of shape over time.
+One of the most popular alternatives is pygopherd.
+.
+.QP
+How does Geomyidae compares to other implementations?
+.PP
+Geomyidae offers a unique simple way of expressing gopher content.
+See the manpage or the examples in the source for how .gph files are formatted.
+And it does just what you want it to do.
+No strange abstraction files like in the original gopher daemons are the default way.
+In the newest release of Geomyidae compatibility scripts were added.
+But those are to preserve the unique history of gopher.
+.
+.QP
+Did Geomyidae have significant evolutions since the beginning?
+.PP
+Yes.
+Originally Geomyidae was named gopherd for Plan 9.
+It then was ported over to Linux.
+On Linux it was renamed to Geomyidae.
+During that development much has happened: There were significant speedups (due to the patches and work of other people!), features were added especially in new dynamic content handling.
+You can easily see all features in the documentation and especially the simple manpage.
+.
+.QP
+Does Geomyidae work with all gopher clients?
+.PP
+Yes.
+Geomyidae supports the original protocol from the beginning, up to modern gopher with TLS.
+For the intermediary gopher+ protocol there is a compatibility layer.
+.
+.QP
+Has NSA inserted a backdoor onto Geomyidae?
+.PP
+I am not allowed to tell you.
+.
+.QP
+How does gopher help with privacy?
+.PP
+The gopher protocol has the unique property that all data you send over the line can be easily controlled and seen.
+This is different to HTTP, where headers, HTML and Javascript got so complex, it is uncontrollable.
+See the gopher onion project (gopher://bitreich.org/1/onion) for how to combine this with tor for total privacy and anonymity.
+.
+.QP
+Are there TLS support on some gopher clients already?
+.PP
+There is support in curl, mpv/ffmpeg, sacc and more.
+It is very easy to add TLS support to any client.
+You simply connect via TLS and if it works, keep that connection open.
+s,via TLS,& on the gopher TCP port (default: 70),
+.
+.QP
+Are there been any evolution of the gopher protocol itself since the beginning of Geomyidae?
+The technology used is simple.
+Gopher does not allow requests, which begin with the first bytes of a TLS request.
+So any proper and old gopher daemon will simply refuse the connection.
+Then the client is free to reconnect without TLS based on its security configuration.
+Any ISDN line will handle such probing requests for TLS easily.
+.
+.QP
+Did Geomyidae have to adapt itself to the gopher protocol? Did it make gopher change?
+Geomyidae changed the part of gophespace it was able to reach.
+Many servers run on Geomyidae.
+There is software written just for Geomyidae and its gph format.
+The TLS extension of the protocol came from Bitreich / Geomyidae.
+We also set the standard to simply use UTF-8 as default representation in gopher menus and so bring it into the 21st century.
+I can conclude: Yes, Geomyidae changed and will change gopher.
+s,changed,&,
+.
+.QP
+Have you seen Geomyidae ever used outside a hobby project?
+Well, Bitreich is serious in changing the software world.
+Most of gopherspace is »hobby projects«.
+But then, most of gopherspace is made from heart blood and love, which makes it part of the life of the authors.
+.
+.QP
+Is Geomyidae ready for non-hobby uses?
+Geomyidae is ready for any use.
+It is stable and optimized to scale better than the cloud.
+.
+.QP
+Geomyidae uses ".gph" files.
+Does it replace the gophermap standard?
+Yes, in Geomyidae it does.
+Gph is simpler and easier to adapt to, especially when you come from some markup world.
+.
+.QP
+Does Geomyidae support dynamic pages?
+Geomyidae supports two forms of dynamic pages: One which uses the gph markup and one, where the script/application outputs raw gopher output.
+Additionally it supports in the latest release a form of REST, where paths are transformed into arguments to scripts.
+There is also support for index.dcgi/index.cgi scripts to have better looking paths and URIs.
+.
+.QP
+Is Geomyidae already packaged in some Linux/BSD distributions?
+As far as I know it is packaged in gentoo, Archlinux (and more), all BSDs.
+18:32 <@__20h__> Since it is so simple to package: Just extract the tarball, run make and make install, the packages are easily made for any package manager.
+.
+.QP
+What is planned for the next releases of Geomyidae?
+As of now I have worked through my whole long-standing TODO list for Geomyidae.
+New ideas will evolve from people sending in patches or through practical need.
+Geomyidae follows the Bitreich manifesto (gopher://bitreich.org/0/documents/bitreich-manifesto.md), where a software can be done.
+.
+.QP
+How to get involved? Getting help, discussing, bug hunting, code contribution, documentation...
+If anyone wants to get involved, first download Geomyidae, run it, have fun using it, creating gopher content.
+If you run into problems, have patches or suggestions, come on ircs://irc.bitreich.org/#bitreich-en and discuss with us your problem.
+For e-mail, send such requests to 20h@r-36.net.
+All contact is in the manpage too.
+.
+.QP
+Can I have an ice cream?
.PP
+Yes, you will get one, once we meet again.