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List:       pgp-keyserver-folk
Subject:    [Pgp-keyserver-folk] Re: Why not NNTP?
From:       alex () syjon ! fantastyka ! net
Date:       2002-11-20 2:00:13
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On Tue, Nov 19, 2002 at 01:44:47PM +0100, Olaf Gellert wrote:
> I think there are good reasons why many people 
> switch to something like http: Because it is
> simple, simple to understand, simple to
> implement and can easily be customized
> for special purposes...

It is not. You are talking about HTTP 0.9 or 1.0 at best.
With the HTTP 1.1 it is a very complicated protocol. Starting with
virtual host negotiation, connection persistence, content negotiation,
session tracking...
Then toss HTTP caching layer in (there's a whole subset of HTTP with
accompanying protocols like ICP and HTCP dedicated only to caching
HTTP sessions). Then add TLS negotiations. Then add SOAP and XML-RPC.

You got the idea. HTTP is a popular protocol (due to avaliability of
Apache and related tool so there will be more and more stuff stacked
on top of it.

If you want a simple HTTP-like protocol, try Gopher. If you want 
key distribution, don't use HTTP. NNTP is a good candidate as it 
is more a peer to peer protocol. Look at eDonkey - it is mainly
NNTP-alike that works with binary files. Keyservers need something
similar.

Alex
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