Date:        31 Jan 2001 08:39:57 +0100
    From:        joda@pdc.kth.se (Johan Danielsson)
    Message-ID:  <xofn1c8w4oi.fsf@blubb.pdc.kth.se>

  | RFC959 does say `list files' (or words to that effect),
  | but I'm pretty sure the people who wrote that meant *all* files, not
  | just regular files (in the unix sense).

Don't bet on it.   FTP is one of the very very ancient protocols (much
older than SMTP (e-mail) for example), when it was first invented, almost
no-one had even heard of unix.

It is quite likely (well, possible anyway) that on the systems that
were in use, the possibility of treating a directory as if it were a
file had never been considered.

kre