[JDEV] EVERYTHING (re: mime/file-xfer/ctcp/etc)

[Jeremie]

I'm about half-way through the last few days messages on the various above
subjects, and I can't procede any further without stating a few things:

First, I apologize for not responding sooner.  I was quite busy getting
things moved to the new server and then I was gone on vacation for a few
days, and WOW lots can happen over that short time!

Now, first things first: client to client connections.  This has been
brought up before and is simply outside the scope of Jabber.  I'm not
going to write up a dissertation on the subject, but it goes something
like this:

The main goal behind Jabber is to provide an architecture that can support
absolutely simple clients that can speak transparently to a variety of
different real-time messaging services.  Jabber is a solution based around
the server.  (for lots of other reasons, which IS a dissertation I'll be
writing sometime soon :)  For a client to be able to do client to client
conenctions it would have to understand ICQ, AIM, etc, etc protocols
directly, and that is exactly what Jabber is NOT.  The other BIG reason
against client to client connections is that as it stands, you can use
Jabber without exposing your computer at all.  The only place that knows
your IP is the server, nowhere is your IP published.  There are various
other reasons as well, but this is already long enough... Maybe I will end
up writing a large document on this subject, but I'd rather be coding *g*.

That being said, there is no reason that any particular client CAN'T do
client to client connections, it's just outside the scope of Jabber,
Jabber is all about the server. If a client author chooses to impliment
anything like client to client connections, it's something specific for
that client.

With that out of the way, the next big question/topic is File Transfers.
I have a proposal for File Transfers and Jabber partially written, and I
will finish it over the next 24-48 hours and post it.  It should answer
many questions and appease many developers.

Last thing: MIME.  It will not become part of the standard
<message></message> packet any time soon, if ever.  All of the
functionality that people want MIME for will be part of the File Transfer
feature(s) that I'll be proposing soon.

I'm going to go back and reread some of the thread and respond to anything
outside of this post, but if there is any further discussion on these
topics please reply to this message.

Thanks,

Jer