[TUHS] Mills' initial implementation of FTP - best citation?

[Paul Ruizendaal]

> I see that the wording on his Wikipedia page has the ambiguous phrase "had
> the first implementation of FTP", which has been flagged as needing
> clarification, so I intend to provide it.
> 
> In both this interview:
> 
> https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/113899/oh403dlm.pdf
> 
> ... and this video recording of Mills himself giving a lecture at UDel:
> 
> https://youtu.be/08jBmCvxkv4?t=428
> 
> ... it's quite clear that it's literally true - he authored, compiled,
> installed, implemented, and tested the very first (and apparently second)
> FTP server.

It may be impossible to provide hard evidence. From RFC 354 it seems to me that the protocol took on a recognisable shape around July 1972 and from RFC 414 it seems to me that there were a number of implementations by November 1972, and unfortunately Dave Mills is not mentioned. His recollection may well be correct, but finding proof he was the first in a 4 months time slot 50+ years ago may be too ambitious.

https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc354.txt
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc414.txt

Maybe the internet history list can shed some more light on the matter:

https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history