Who is Still Using FSP?

orangesquid asks: "So what on earth has happened to FSP, the original 'underground filesharing' system? I know it dried up a long time ago, but most old protocols still tend to have a few odd users (gopher, finger, etc.). However, I haven't found a single FSP site out there that still works. Googling is difficult, because all of the search hits are dated 1996 or earlier, and none of them are accurate. Is FSP still around at all? What are people using it for now?"

Comments

Because no one needs it anymore.

[Ayanami Rei]

The lightweight aspect is covered by a much better-known solution (datagrams and all) called TFTP.

FTP servers have become much more tolerant, configurable, and featureful. Plus we have sftp and scp which make command-line coddling + security a reality.

Finally, if you want to keep directories updated between sites passively or sporadically, you can always use rsync, which uses less bandwidth by virtue than FSP right off the bat.

Where does FSP fit in? Nowhere, anymore. I don't feel nostalgic as I'd never even heard of it. ::shrugs::

Re:He's dead, Jim.

[GigsVT]

The major things holding back the adoption are a lack of native anonymous SFTP capabilities, and a really shitty default SFTP client.

I, for one, would like to see a SFTP that used something like rsync become the standard. Screw resume, who needs resume when your client can pick out any missing or corrupt parts and correct them?

Rsync has saved me tons of time in the past. I've downloaded several hundred meg files, only to find them corrupted in transit (thanks Starband!), but if I can find someone who is willing to put the files up and set up rsync for me to sync to, I can uncorrupt my file in less than a minute, rather than downloading the whole damn thing again.

The only thing that mystifies me is why there is so much stagnation in basic file transfer protocols. My former college has resorted to using DAV when they decided to disable FTP for security reasons. DAV is probably great and all, but it wasn't really designed with replacing FTP in mind.

All the pieces are there, someone just needs to roll them into one product. You can rsync over ssh, and you can install a special shell to make an "SCP/SFTP only" account. But you still can't have a single, universal way to securely get files, in a way that would kill FTP forever.

waiting to patent it

[PapaZit]

My guess is that someone at Microsoft is waiting for people to forget about it so that they can re-introduce and patent the embraced, extended version for patch downloads.

Now that you've brought it up, you've set their plans back by years, you bastard!

Seriously, I pulled out the FSP sources that I had a while ago, and they didn't even compile cleanly. (I think they worked on SunOS 3 or so). I decided that using rsync would work almost as well with a lot less work.

FSP has a future, but only for non-critical software transfers, and nobody's ever willing to admit that their transfer is non-critical. So, you really do need someone like an OS vendor to sneak it in behind-the-scenes. Maybe, uh, Redhat could use it for their patch transfer system.

Sick thought: BitTorrent over FSP. After you get over the nausea, it starts to sound like an okay idea. :)