ftp archives disappearing?

[Jules Richardson]

Dave McGuire wrote:
> On Mar 13, 2007, at 2:53 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
>>> /bin/finger
>>> apophis$ which talk
>>> /bin/talk
>>>   ...looks to me like they're still there.
>>
>> The issue's more that in today's security-paranoid atmosphere 
>> firewalls tend to have everything apart from a few basic services 
>> (like HTTP and SMTP) blocked. So the binaries are still there and 
>> reasonably widespread - you just can't use 'em :(
> 
>   I generally don't (and generally won't) use networks that I don't run, 
> and I'm not a lazy or clueless admin...so I'm used to seeing things a 
> bit more "open" and functional.

OK, so they're still functional *to you*. But if you take into account the 
number of machines on the public network and then look at the number of 
machines which are capable of using programs like talk, I suspect the 
proportion is absolutely tiny. (which isn't a Good Thing, IMHO)

(I had exactly the same issues with VCRs the other day - they're still useful 
*to me*, but planet-wide they're dead as a dodo, superseded by DVD and PVR 
technology, so I had to bite my tongue when someone declared them obsolete :-)

[and there's a real danger with people confusing obsolescence with "no longer 
any good" - to my mind they're often totally different things]

cheers

J.