[[JDEV] Thoughts on user at server.com name addressing]

[Thomas Jerome Muldowney]

Yeah, that was another idea that I was toying with today while working on
some client layout.  I even drew a little diagram of a simple chain of
what the client would have to do, and what the server would have to do for
figuring out someones, real address from a repository.  I also agree
that's it's probably best, to just test the current system.  Why change
everything, when there is a doable system in place.

--Thomas Muldowney

On 6 Jan 1999, Eric S.Smith wrote:

> Oh, *ugh*.  Netscape's WebMail has a lousy interface for replies.
> My apologies if this turns out all fouled up.
> 
> Of course, this is how domain names work, so it's doable.
> 
> A central name-resolver wouldn't have to do too much work, since
> communications would still be going through users' "home" Jabber
> servers.  There could even be a community of name-resolvers that
> shared the job (via round-robin DNS or a meta-resolver that just
> tells you the name of a nearby name-resolver to use).
> 
> > Finally, wouldn't it be more of a client part to keep track 
> > of what user at server.com goes with what Nick?
> 
> An address book, in other words?  This solves the problem of
> remembering Jabber addresses, but not of giving them permanence:
> one of the arguments in favour of centralized name resolution is
> that if I move from one Jabber-enabled ISP to another, my address,
> under the current user at host system, will probably change.
> 
> That said, I think that the user at host system is just fine.  If
> it turns out to be too much of a hassle, we can just set up a
> centralized name resolution system after the fact. People could 
> then roll automagical use of it into a new version of the client.
> The client would query the central system by handing it some 
> universal Jabber ID code, be told the real user at host address, and 
> make the call as before.  
> 
> This would be a backward-compatible extension to the client and 
> wouldn't affect the installed base of older clients or the servers.  
> As such, any concerned citizen could set it up -- expanding it to 
> serve as a directory of other addresses too, if desired.
> 
> Another measure that would solve the problem of users changing
> ISPs would be to give them the ability to leave a forwarding address.
> Rather than just saying "no such user," the Jabber server could say
> "moved to user at new-host."  Of course, this would require changes to
> the protocol.
> 
> --Eric Smith
> 
> -- 
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