If we are going to come up with a special kind of document
that refers to a new document type that has the semantics
of "pointer to file available for anonymous ftp", then it
should be assigned a WAIS type tag, described, and specified.
I'd suggest the tag AFTP. Someone write a spec, we'll all
write code, & be done with it. (There's plenty of data after
all.) It would be better to do that rather than to use a TEXT
type tag and bicker about the format.
I don't think it would be hard for the WWW gateway to WAIS to
do special things to documents if they had a different type,
and then use that to convert AFTP type documents to WWW format.
Ditto gopher, archie, etc. clients.
If it's TEXT, on the other hand, it can be *anything*. Please
don't overload the semantics of the name of the server or the
accidental formatting of the contents of the document. I would
like to create AFTP records to stick into many servers.
--
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com
MSEN Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI 48103 +1 313 741 1120
"Things are glued together with spit and bailing wire now."