Status of RFC 1738

The question has arisen of whether, with the publication of the nntp/news  
schemes, RFC 1738 can finally be delcared obsolete.

Looking at the list of schemes defined therein, it appears that most of  
them have been dealt with by new RFCs, or have been declared historic.  
According to IANA, there would still remain just two schemes not yet  
disposed of, namely 'file' and 'ftp'.

It has been suggested that 'file' is so ambiguous, with no consensus on  
how the clean it up, that it may as well be abandoned. OTOH, most browsers  
support it, at least for accessing resources on the localhost, and I  
personally find it quite useful.

It seems that 'ftp' really needs a new RFC, even if it merely copies the  
text out of 1738.

What are the views of this list as to whether these schemes should now be  
properly codified (and volunteers to do it)? And should the final  
obsoleting of 1738 be held back until that has been done?

When it is finally ready to go, declaring it as 'historic' might well be  
in order.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131                       
   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
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Received on Thursday, 7 January 2010 10:47:13 UTC