[comp.protocols.tcp-ip] FTP specmanship?

WANCHO@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Frank J. Wancho") (06/02/89)

Is there any interpretation of either RFC 959 or its roughly
corresponding MIL STD which calls for TYPE L 8 to be considered a
required command to be implemented in a user ftp?  How about QUOTE and
DIR?

Likewise, is there anything that says that the user ftp program
should/must be implemented as a user-interactive program?

Sound like *dumb* questions?  You bet.  Incredible as it may seem,
there actually is a vendor's user ftp product without TYPE L 8, QUOTE,
and DIR - just "SEND" and "RECEIVE" and either ASCII or BINARY - all
menu-driven, fill-in-the-blank, and sent off as a batch job!  What I
don't understand is that this vendor apparently would rather implement
a utility to convert our 8-bit binary files, grabbed with TYPE L 32,
than implement TYPE L 8...  So, I'm looking for ammunition...

Although it's too late in this case to point to the Host Requirements
document, I sure hope some clarification statements are included to
preclude such elementary loopholes as these.

--Frank

cpw%sneezy@LANL.GOV (C. Philip Wood) (06/11/89)

Frank,

Let me know who the vendor is.  I'll spread the word to boycott them
hear at LANL.

Cornett