[sles-beta] FTP

[David Boyes]

> As discussed, we have a goal of "One Tool for One Use Case", and in terms of
> FTP the decision has been made, to go with:
> [snip]
> lftp was chosen, as it supports multiple protocols (http, webdav, ... on topf o
> ftp), backgrounding of running downloads, ... and has a reasonable CLI.

Except that CLI is different enough to break most of the existing FTP automation scripts that people have already written and depend on for real production work. 
Sorry, that's not an improvement, that's a cost, and a pointless, needless variation vs any other Linux distribution. That CLI change requires special case code to cope with. And extra documentation. And extra testing. And every time we have to document "do it this way on every Linux EXCEPT SLES12" you look at best idiosyncratic, and at worst, incompatible. 

Something that would be very helpful from the SUSE folks if you're going to insist on the "one ring to rule them all" approach:  a comprehensive list of what functions/use cases you have evaluated that you think we need, and what packages you have chosen to supply to meet those needs.  Discovering these "choices" one by one is becoming really, really frustrating, and you may be able to avoid a lot of complaints by discussing this curation process up front and getting what we ACTUALLY want vs what you think we want.