Subject: Two comments on the filexfer draft

From: "Joseph Galbraith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 07:35:15 -0700

I have two comments on the file transfer draft.

1. We need to be careful of international language issues.
   I would recommend all file / path names should be specified
   as UTF-8.

2. Currently, there is no way to correctly interpret time
   information because we have no way of determining the
   timezone of the server.

   I would prefer that all times should be specified as UTC.
   Alternatively, adding a mechanism to discover server time
   zone information would be acceptable.

Thanks,

- Joseph

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From: Tatu Ylonen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 18:23:58 +0200 (EET)

>    I would recommend all file / path names should be specified

I would tend to agree with you, even though this differs from
the current implementation(s).

>    zone information would be acceptable.

I agree.  (I was intending them to be UTC, and they are UTC in the
existing implementation(s).)

    Tatu

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From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 15:09:47 -0500

>   I would recommend all file / path names should be specified

        It would be worthwhile, IMHO, to study how the IETF NFS WG
dealt with file/pathname internationalisation in hopes that
the IETF could handle this matter in a consistent way.

>   zone information would be acceptable.

        Either there ought to be a way of communicating timezone
information xor the specification should state in crystal clear
manner that all times are in UTC.

IMHO,

Ran
[email-masked]

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From: Sami Lehtinen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:07:06 +0200

Joseph Galbraith, on January 12. 2001, wrote:
  : I have two comments on the file transfer draft.
  : 
  : 1. We need to be careful of international language issues.
  :    I would recommend all file / path names should be specified
  :    as UTF-8.

I don't have a strong opinion about this.

  : 2. Currently, there is no way to correctly interpret time
  :    information because we have no way of determining the
  :    timezone of the server.

I changed the draft to specify UTC in atime/ctime in ATTRS. I didn't
add this to the `longname' description, as that field is filled in
by the server, and it has no knowledge about the client.

Clarification: IMO, if you type `ls -l' in the remote server, and
print out longnames on a remote system from the same server, these
should look about the same.

-- 
[[email-masked]          --  Sami J. Lehtinen  --           [email-masked]]
[work:+358 9 85657425][gsm:+358 50 5170 258][http://www.iki.fi/~sjl]
[SSH Communications Security Corp               http://www.ssh.com/]

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From: [email-masked] (Niels M�ller)
Date: 15 Jan 2001 19:58:30 +0100

>    I would recommend all file / path names should be specified

This could get messy, but perhaps it's necessary.
If we do it, the document must also specify that either

A. the server is responsible for respecting unicode canonical
   equivalence, or

B. the client should normalize all filenames (according to some
   reasonable rules for normalization).

When we were discussion usernames and passwords previously, I think
the wg tended towards the former option. Again, it would be
interesting to know what other file sharing protocols do.

/Niels