The Gemini Protocol

an internet without BLOAT, the small internet have you heard of gopher? well that is dead but I present to you the evolution: >The Gemini Protocol< almost literally just monocromatic text it does have hyperlinks and by design it enables a cryptographic identity based on TOFU (trust on first use) feels like a terminal what is gemini? peertube video: https://toobnix.org/videos/watch/8ee54700-971c-4da3-a8b4-7a78ed9ac42e the protocol website: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

>guy sees that the web is bloated >creates minimal web protocol >only uses text cause images are BLOAT >adds emoji support >doesnt add text formatting >every paragraph must be on one line >edit gemini page >see 1000 character lines Would it really be so terrible if gemini pages had the ability to display itallic or bold text. Would it really just KILL the developer to have source files with tags instead of this insane "one line per paragraph" soykaf. Gemini already uses tags/code fences with its 'absolute width text blocks' or whatever, why wouldn't the same thing work for paragraphs. Doesnt make sense to me. Why develop this great minimal thing thats simpler than the web, then shoot it in the leg with 1000 character lines and no ability to format text. If its only doing text then just let me format my fuarrrking text please; why is this so wrong!?!

>>31921 Ahhhh the creep begins :) such a bittersweet feeling to see it right at the beginning like this again

>>31929 Idk how this is gonna work out for you if books can have bold and italics but your web replacement cant.

>>31913 I use Gopher, which is better. While Gopher has some failings, particularly regarding automation, it's truly simple, unlike Gemini. It's my understanding Gemini lacks things which are true improvements, like an indication of download sizes, for no particular reason. Requiring encryption is unnecessary for many purposes, arduous for a single programmer to implement, and locks out older hardware. Gopher is a true IETF RFC. I see no compelling reason to use Gemini over Gopher, so I won't.

>>31940 gopher is incomplete, it has no defined standard, everyone just adds their own personialized extensions to their own webpages encryption is not really an issue etheir because they decided to use TLS which is used everywhere and there are libraries in every lang

here is the mailing list archive https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/date.html#start

This is stupid. All you need to do is to cut down HTML to not carry js and fingerprinting soykaf.

>>31941 >it has no defined standard It's IETF RFC 1436. >everyone just adds their own personialized extensions to their own webpages People abuse Gopher menues, but it's hard to design a protocol which can't be abused in some way. >encryption is not really an issue etheir because they decided to use TLS which is used everywhere and there are libraries in every lang How much effort is it to write my own TLS? My point is TLS immediately makes everything more complicated. The group of people interested in Gemini is going to intersect with the group of people who like languages which don't have special bindings to some popular TLS library.

>>31947 there are tons of server software already built you should check that out there is an agregator called CAPCOM where you find news about them a client for windows https://github.com/makeworld-the-better-one/amfora/releases/tag/v1.5.0

Just use Gopher.

>>31997 There's literally no benefit of Gopher to Gemini to my knowledge. Gemini is based on Gopher with improvements. https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html

Until this thread I wasn't aware that mainline browsers had removed Gopher protocol support. It seems they are also removing FTP support too! https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-to-remove-support-for-the-ftp-protocol/ >19 March 2020 >Novotny says Mozilla plans to disable support for the FTP protocol with the release of Firefox 77, scheduled for release in June this year. >Users will still be able to view and download files via FTP, but they'll have to re-enable FTP support via a preference inside the about:config page. >However, Novotny says that Mozilla will eventually remove the entire code that supports the FTP protocol inside Firefox, in the end. This is scheduled for the start of 2021, Novotny said, when there will be no workaround for re-enabling FTP support, and Firefox will stop handling FTP content altogether. Similar plans for Chrome >Mozilla's move comes after Google took a similar decision in regards to the FTP protocol in Chrome last year. >In August 2019, Google announced plans to remove the ability to access and view FTP links from Chrome. >FTP support will be disabled by default in Chrome v81 -- currently delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak -- and all traces of the FTP protocol will be removed from the Chrome codebase in Chrome 82, scheduled for release in late spring, early summer this year. This censorship is for 'security reasons'. Time to ditch the Web me thinks, as it is indeed turned into cancer!

>>31921 >>31929 Dude I'm doing it in my head already. "Well this is a good start but if we look to older text mode word processors we can probably determine the maximum feature set that you could ever want from this sort of rendering system. Then if we take clues from simple and intuitive formatting tools like markdown we can probably figure out a way to......" Honestly I think I'm right with this thinking but someone else is bound to have better ideas than me. And that's the story of how things went to soykaf!!

>>33848 How is ftp required for web browsers? Can't https transfer files for people just as well?

>>33887 >How is ftp required for web browsers? Can't https transfer files for people just as well? It can. It's one of those miserable crufty designed-for-1980 insecure crap protocols that needs to die ASAP, just like SMTP. Between HTTPS for simple file downloads and SFTP as a proper modern FTP replacement, there's no need to keep FTP in browsers. Let it die. We can't let nostalgia cloud our better judgement on technical matters.

This is just idiotic. You can't solve social problems with technical solutions. The bloat is not a technical problem, you can create a fast, text-based website (like https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ or https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com/) with existing technology.

>>33910 >You can't solve social problems with technical solutions. Absolutely right. More people ought to keep that fact in mind, especially the useless "an app will solve everything!" crowd at HN.

>>33922 >>33910 Technical problems lead to social problems, and thus solving those technical problems can solve their social problems. Most social problems are caused by and can be cured by technology.

This is really what I was looking for. Gopher is nice as well but a few additions are necessary. Sincerely this is what the web should have been.

>>33970 the protocol is in development some open questions are if we should implement something like https://htmx.org/, which upload protocol to embrace (titan, discouri, geminiupload), streams join the mailing list to participate https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/date.html

I made a text board UwU gemini://matrix.kiwifarms.net/ source: https://git.kiwifarms.net/CrunkLord420/gemboard

>>34883 absolutely based

>>33940 >technology has caused so much problems, let's create even more technology to remedy them Continue ad infinitum. At this point I'd consider the possibility that technological development is inherently flawed.

>>31946 This is a good idea and probably the quickest path forward, but it almost certainly requires a new web browser made from simpler components than the giants that are Chromium/Firefox. However, it's difficult to implement a new browser because of the complexity of HTTP, HTML, CSS, and all the other stuff that is in the browser ecosystem. A new protocol gives us the chance to "start fresh" from a good starting point and a clear path ahead.

>>31913 why do people keep making these soykafty text protocols and not even knowing how the "text" they cargoculted onto it works? DAY OF THE SEAL SOON

>>35101 Ok, then enlighten us, and then we can help fix it. Or are you just gonna spam a stale meme and try to gatekeep against people doing real work?

>>35163 i'm saving you from wasting your time (and mine. lol). there is no solution with UN*X text. there is also no solution with text (the thing UN*X may choose to implement in 10 years after they get done realizing VT100 emulator is a pointless meme) >real work picrelvery

Dumb question: Javascript and bloat has really been driven by web apps/sites that need images like maps, video, e-commerce... If Gemini is what the web "should have been" doesn't that exclude a lot of useful stuff?

>>35190 the solution are downloable terminal web apps that work over webassembly

>>35180 Ok, then. What's the solution?

>>33940 Yes and no, being that society itself is what pushes technology and technology that is not backed by society dies without notice. You first need to look at the sociological aspect of a problem before working on a technological solution.

There are more gemini+gopher servers today than 10 years ago

There are more gopher servers today than 10 years ago

I don't get it, if it's a network protocol, how does it prevent HTML?

>>35273 There's this idea that the only market forces are what make companies do things. But isn't this clearly false? These huge corporations have been creating spying products and convincing people that they want them and that they solve problems. Society may have pushed technology back when life was hard. Do you want to spend hours each day washing clothes or spend 5 minutes loading the washing machine. But now it's clearly corporations pushign it: Do you want to save 3 seconds turning on the lights or have your lights connected to the internet so you can use your phone to turn them on? Marketing is so pervasive and effective that companies could sell snow to eskimos because it's Apple™ branded snow.

>>35276 They consist of 99% useless blogshits nobody will ever read.

>>35297 Look, man, just take a walk, drink some water, and get some sun, ok? Worried about you.

>>35305 He's right though. Most of those gopherholes are abandoned and out of those that aren't there's only a few worth checking up.

>>35284 >Marketing is so pervasive and effective that companies could sell snow to eskimos because it's Apple™ branded snow. Sadly, this is true. I keep telling my friends that Apple's snow products are not good. For example, they add something that makes it melt in the summer, so that they can sell their next version each year. I bought used non-Apple snow bricks over a half-decade ago and they still work like new. It was slightly difficult to set them up the way I like, but after that, I've never had to think about them. That's something I don't understand about eskimos that use Apple's snow bricks. There's always some subtle changes each year. The fact that it changes means the eskimo will have to re-learn it, but the fact that it's subtle means the eskimo will only notice that it's changed when something isn't working as expected, which means that they're always re-learning some small thing about how to use it. It's frustrating when they say it just works despite constantly re-learning how to use it.