Agate, a simple Gemini server written in Rust
github.com
github.com
The code in Agate is a bit weird, because it started as a 100-line toy server I wrote for my personal use. A lot of the early code was optimized for conciseness rather than maintainability. It also had various micro-optimizations that were probably totally unnecessary, just because my idea of fun involves minimizing allocations and copying everywhere.
As other people started actually using the code, and submitting feature requests and patches, I mostly gave up on minimalism as a goal. The newer code is more focused on maintainability, but it's still mixed together with the old code.
My favorite thing about this project is that, as the community grew beyond my own motivation to manage it, the most active contributor @Johann150 stepped up to maintain it [1], and has done a great job!
[1]: https://github.com/mbrubeck/agate/issues/6#issuecomment-7677...
I personally prefer Amfora (Go), which uses the GUS search engine by default on top of being aesthetically pleasant and minimal.
Here's the link to it for the lazy:
Going through the docs, it's apparent that Gemini is a bit more than just that. A description that is almost as succinct but more accurate would be 'A Gopher inspired protocol, over TLS'.
It is worth noting that using TLS doesn't seem like an afterthought (it's required, not optional), and more closely resembles SCP rather than HTTPS, with the use of client certs a first-class feature for example.
It would be an interesting project to implement a REST-like API over Gemini.
URLs are limited to 1024 characters according to the spec, and query strings look like it's the only way for clients to talk to servers outside of the URL, so you have a pretty narrow pipe.
If they know they don't ever want that to be possible, well fair enough it's their protocol, but I don't see the point of a cool feature like identifying clients explicitly by client TLS certs only when clients can never do anything but view documents and maybe do a simple search anyways.
>Gemini is a new application-level internet protocol for the distribution of arbitrary files, with some special consideration for serving a lightweight hypertext format which facilitates linking between files.
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.gmi https://drewdevault.com/2020/11/01/What-is-Gemini-anyway.htm...
It's supposed to be simple in order to support trivial clients, and to prevent it from suffering the web's ill fate.
But it forces complexity into clients, by making TLS (of all possible ways to do e2ee!) mandatory and by not even giving the client the length of a response before the response is sent.
Of course, for political reasons, protocol can't be extended, and while it's still new and could be made sane, it won't; The authors don't want outside input.
I'd look into Gopher instead. It's old and tested, not to mention free of political bullshit.
Refer to "non-extensibility" in the FAQ[0]. Particularly, as applied to content length in 2.12.
Whereas 2.x is full of examples of bad decisions which they're stubborn about not fixing.
It is basically somebody's pet project, opinionated and full of rough edges they refuse to ever polish.
It lacks the processes and, at the core, the quality expected of a standard, and thus we should be very careful not to mislabel it a standard.
AFAIK Gemini is not and has not yet been heavily used for the politics of government or social issues. If your concern is whether it's a new haven for left-wing/right-wing/whatever-wing nuts to spew vitriol and hate, I don't think that is the case.
I'm really confused by how vehemently against Gemini you seem to be and by the claim that the Gopherspace has no politics.
I don't like it, and I explained why.
Can you be specific on what it is you're confused about?
>and by the claim that the Gopherspace has no politics.
A claim made by whom exactly?
Of course, for political reasons, protocol can't be extended, and while it's still new and could be made sane, it won't; The authors don't want outside input.
Which I suspect that many clients just ignore the second part.
I do think ideas need a compelling reason to exist in order to be successful, but then again the people behind Gemini may not have my definition of "success" as one of their stated goals.
OpenBSD might be another example of such a project.
You need more power in your computer to read a recipe for Yorkshire Puddings than you do to run a spaceship to Mars.
Taking out a lot of tracking and malware, just serving content, goes back to the 90's Interwebs.
Some of us would very much appreciate that.
Also wonder if the easiest way to fix online advertising is indeed to replace HTTP altogether.
And it is broken by design; By not providing a length field in the response, it does force complexity into clients.
Of course, for political reasons[0], protocol can't be extended (refer to 2.12), and while it's still new and could be made sane, it won't; The authors do not want outside input.