[JDEV] Questions on the protocol

[Anders Qvist]

On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Jeremie wrote:

[snip]
> > 3. Current examples enters addresses for other transports as
> >    12341424 at ICQ. I'd like to propose the less ambiguous form
> >    icq:12312313. This will take care of the fact that someone else may
> >    come up with the same scheme as we have. Of course, pedants may use
> >    jabber:user at blah.org. Incidentally, we now have a subset uf the URI
> >    standard. 
> > 
> >    This will conflict with current description which allows special
> >    characters in the ID. These should then be escaped in accordance
> >    with URI standard.
> 
> There's a major problem with that approach, and the problem is that the
> server would have to "know" where the ICQ transport is.  As it stands now,
> the ICQ transport could be foobar.server.com and nobody would know the
> difference.  You could layer that on and say icq:12345 at server.com, but why
> even have the distinction between different addresses?

I don't understand. If the machine isn't called icq, the current scheme
has the same problem?

> Also, we wouldn't have any way of knowing all the possible transports out
> there and specifying them, there will likely be third party services that
> put up a special closed service on their server, and this should be
> transparent to the end user, just blah at service.com.

But how do the server on the receiving end differentiate addresses? It
would have to know which transport each user is using. And that would also
mean that usernames must be coordinated between transports so no ambiguity
arises. I find that a bit constricting.
 
> Pure and absolute transparency is one of the essential goals of Jabber,
> there shouldn't be any way of distingushing the type of user from the
> address.

But what if we want to handle addresses for some other messaging system
that also use mail addresses (eg email)? Heck, any system with a
distributed model will give the current scheme problem, won't it?

I'm not sure I understand your intentions. These comments are more to try
to understand than to argue my own idea.

Anders "Quest" Qvist
NetGuide Scandinavia

And we who listen to the sky, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down, to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand;
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.

-- Catherine Faber, "The Word of God"