Martin Thomson wrote:
There are two aspects to this: the software, and the content.
If software cannot be updated, that a problem in its own right. The
idea that you could release your server onto the Internet to fend for
itself for 20 years was a dream of the 90s that has taken a while to
die. Just as you have to feed it electricity and packets, you have to
maintain software too.
In my case, the situation is that I have classic computers running 1-10
megahertz processors, for which encrypting and decrypting SSL is not a
plausible option. These computers have a burgeoning "retro" fanbase
trying to push them to do new and interesting things, and a lot of that
involves writing software that works over the Web using standard
protocols. These efforts cannot be sustained in an HTTPS-only world.
This has personal meaning to me as a long-time member of the
retrocomputing community, and as the author of software that runs on
these machines, including multiple programs that use HTTP to do so. If
things start requiring HTTPS, our ability to continue to innovate and
try to push these machines to do more and more things previously unheard
of starts to come to an end. I don't like that notion very much.
Is it a niche case? Sure. But it's not one to be dismissed outright
without at least having its voice heard, so here I am, representing our
little crowd.
I'm not trying to stir up trouble or be a pain in the ass. Just pointing
out that there honestly, truly are valid use cases for straight-up HTTP,
even if they're rare.
(FWIW, I concede that the "not everything needs encryption" position is
a little overstated, but I also think that there really is stuff that
doesn't need encrypting, even if it's a tiny fraction of the Web's traffic).
--
Eric Shepherd
Senior Technical Writer
Mozilla <https://www.mozilla.org/>
Blog: http://www.bitstampede.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sheppy
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