RFC 506

RFC 506: An FTP Command-Naming Problem 💖

Title block, bestie: this one is by M.A. Padlipsky from MIT-Multics 🎀, filed as NIC #16157 on 6/26/73 🌸. The title block doesn't say what it obsoletes or updates, so there's nothing to report there. It's an early-days Network Working Group doc, and it's giving pure "we were all figuring this out together" energy 🧚

The Vibe Check 🦋

okay so, the FTP commands are literally the problem here. Padlipsky has noticed that two of the big ones, STOR and RETR, have really confusing names 😭 STOR tells the Server to take a file in, and RETR tells the Server to send a file out.

Here's the mess: telling the Server to "retrieve" a file sounds like you want the file to come IN to the Server, not go out 💀 And telling the Server to "store" a file? That could mean send it out OR take it in. Ngl, the names are both vibes-ambiguous and not very easy to remember if you think of them as commands to the Server 🙈

He does say that if you think of them as commands to the User Host, they make more sense, but they're not commands to the Use (Host.) So the perspective is the whole issue fr fr 💅

The Obvious Fix (and the Lowkey Better One) ✨

Okay, you could just memorize the actual meanings even though the names are misleading. That's a solution, sure 🍓 But it would be way easier for users if the names actually matched what the commands do.

So he's proposing that PUSH and PULL get added to FTP as synonyms for RETR and STOR, respectively. He hopes this works, which is so relatable 🥺 He also says that even GIVE and TAKE would be an improvement. And at the very least, SEND should be a synonym for RETR. Very iconic of him to offer a backup plan 👑

The Footnote That Ate 📝

(1) Note that by specifying synonyms rather than replacement, existing correct reflexes -- and "automata" -- are not disturbed, while newcomers to FTPing are given a better chance of choosing right. 💜

Translation: adding synonyms instead of replacing the commands means nobody's current code or muscle memory breaks 🫶 Meanwhile, new people learning FTP get a much better shot at picking the right command. Periodt 🔥

The Archive Glow-Up 🌈

Last but not least, this copy was turned into machine readable form for the online RFC archives, and it's giving restoration era 🧚 Here's the note, verbatim:

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
[ into the online RFC archives by Alex McKenzie with    ]
[ support from GTE, formerly BBN Corp.             9/99 ]

Shoutout to Alex McKenzie and GTE (formerly BBN Corp.) for keeping this one alive ⭐ Honestly this is so iconic, and a 1973 doc about naming things is still hitting in 2026 🌸💅