[JDEV] IETF, Jabber, etc..

[Thomas D. Charron]

	I promise that sometime tonight I'll post my outlook on the pulver.com meeting, but as I thought about things that happened, I feel the need to express an opinion that I've neded up developing..

	As it stands now, the IETF goals and our CURRENT jabber goals are different.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad or not.  We're geared in a different direction..

	The IMPP standard is geared at MORE then JUST IM, and IM is what we've been looking at, but there is MUCH more to it then I would have thought about BEFORE the meeting.  Presence notification is a whole different ball of wax then just simple IM, and giving the ability to IM accross networks, etc..

	Now, I'm not saying that IMPP and jabber don't mix.  I'm just saying we're currently working more on one particular layer of the cake.  A long time ago, in an archive far far away, someone said while we where discussing feature negotiation, that a client may respond to a file transfer with "Please Don't, I'm a TOASTER".  I still love that line, but here's my getcha.  What can jabber, as it stands now, or even in the near future, going to DO for a toaster?  My toaster certainly won't have a buddy list, so when I turn it on, it's isn't going to announce it's presence, nor would I want it to.  But how can I get data from it?  Do I want it on a buddy list?  Hell no.  May I want to get data to it or from it, hell YA!  Right now, we're not in that direction.

	One of the things that came out of the pulver.com summit is that we're in a big, BIG world, and there's more to IM and presence then we seem to be looking at.  The Cisco, Worldnet, and even Erikson guys made some points that made me think.

	Now, we're getting the structure to our system, but we really, REALLY need to look and make sure we don't lock ourselves into a 'software IM' system alone.  Our design is helpfull in that fact, but my concern is unity between identities.  Now that I've gone thru that, I have an idea to really hurt peoples heads..

	Our current system works, and can work well, and I think we're headed in the right direction to solve many problems, but the presence one bothers me.  Now, for the idea.  Let me go thru an example.

	Let's say my Jabber id itself is tcharron at jabber.org.  Now, my Cell phone may me 6031234567 at cellphone.jabber.org.  My pager, 167289 at mobilecom.jabber.org.  My toaster toaster at appliances.tomshouse.net.  I know, that these seem silly, but bear with it and try to suspend reality.

	Now, jabbertransport right now, is geared twards sending and recieving of IM.  Sure, we can do more with it, but that's what it's really geared for.  To, From, Subject, etc..  That's IM land.  It's NOT really presence geared.  What if we had a transport that was geared twards just that, presence.  This transport could actually serve as a metatransport to the others.  I can register lots of things, and all of them have different addresses, but my presence data would all be available and configurable via this one transport.  I could dynamically have it route messages how I wanted them routed.  We've geared this twards being inside of jabbertransport, but why?  Jabbertransport is an IM base, NOT a PRESENCE base.  With a presence base, you COULD connect to a server anonymously somewhere, send a message validating yourself to the presence transport, and bingo, anyone looking at your presence would be able to see your online, even though you aren't logged into jabbertransport, and perhaps not even be reachable by IM.

	Example:  I'm not at home, I'm on the road.  I want to get a message to me.  What if there was a way to automagically have messages, calls, etc, be able to tell where I am, and go to me there, aka, my cellular phone.  I certainly wouldn't really WANT my cell phone to get a file transfer, and I really wouldn;t want it to be logged into a transport to give that data.  At the same time, I'd like to somehow let people know how to reach me.

	This is the type of thing that the IMPP will give the ability to do.  Cisco and several other names that where there WANT this to get in.  It's the new buzz word..  'Presence'..

	Hypothetically, this COULD all be incorperated into jabbertransport as it stands now, but why?  IM is one thing, presence is totally different.

	I'll shadap now, and sorry to all who have a hard time reading my dejanews posts becouse they don;t wrap for you.

	Jer, please add on to this, becouse it had alot to do with the 'bigger picture' that we saw whole there.
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Thomas Charron


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