[JDEV] Fw: Jabber column

[Al Sutton]

All,

Glyn has kindly allowed me to post the text of his article that will appear
in today's Computing Weekly in the UK to this group.

Enjoy,

Al.

----- Original Message -----
From: -- EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED--
To: <al at alsutton.com>
Cc: -- EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED--
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: Jabber column


> In-Reply-To: <004b01c0f3d0$3647dbc0$03a4a8c0 at cola>
> Well, believe it or not, Computer Weekly does not post my column
> online....
>
> However, as a Jabber fan, I'm happy to give permission for you to post the
> following text to the mailing list, if you think people might be
> interested.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Glyn Moody
>
> begins
>
> Talking about Jabber
>
> Last week I wrote about the growing number of companies that aim to work
> within the current fragmented Instant Messaging (IM) market.  One of the
> most interesting of these is Jabber (http://www.jabber.org/).  In part,
> this stems from the fact that the Jabber project is open source.  As such,
> it not surprisingly believes in open standards (see
> http://www.jabber.org/?oid=129 for more on its philosophy).
>
> A FAQ about its software can be found at
> http://docs.jabber.org/general/html/faq.html, with a useful glossary at
> http://docs.jabber.org/general/html/glossary.html.  There is also a very
> full Jabber User Guide (http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/userguide/), which
> explains Jabber's use of a distributed IM server system, in contrast to
> the centralised approach of AOL's AIM or ICQ, say.
>
> To use Jabber, you need client software
> (http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/userguide/chooseclient.trp), and there are
> a wide range of programs and supported platforms
> (http://www.jabbercentral.com/clients/).  You also need to register with a
> server (http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/userguide/chooseserver.trp) to set
> up an account (http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/userguide/register.trp).
>
> Using open standards, Jabber offers standard IM features, as well as a
> chat mode that allows multiple individuals to send text messages to each
> other as a group.  And flowing in part from its commitment to openness,
> Jabber is of note for the way it can work with a wide variety of other
> systems, and not just Instant Messaging, using what it calls transports -
> effectively plug-ins that provide a kind of translation to other
> standards.  Details of how it works with AOL's AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo
> messaging can be found at
> http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/userguide/aim.trp.  Jabber will even work
> with old-style Internet Relay Chat servers.
>
> As befits an open project, Jabber provides extremely good documentation
> (http://docs.jabber.org/), including a helpful overview of its technology
> (http://docs.jabber.org/general/html/overview.html).  There are details
> about its server offering at
> http://docs.jabber.org/no-sgml/howto-1.4.html, while a further source of
> information and news is Jabber Central (http://www.jabbercentral.com/).
>
> But beyond its attempt to bring some harmony to the world of IM, Jabber is
> also rather special in that alongside its open source work, it offers
> commercial services from Jabber.com (http://www.jabber.com/).  More about
> how the company came to be formed can be found at
> http://www.jabber.com/about/index.shtml.
>
> There are details about its broad mission
> (http://www.jabber.com/about/mission.shtml), its products
> (http://www.jabber.com/products/index.shtml), services
> (http://www.jabber.com/services/index.shtml) and customers
> (http://www.jabber.com/customers/index.shtml).  The most significant of
> these is France Telecom, which has also invested in the company
> (http://www.jabber.com/news/release_050701.shtml).
>
> Also worth exploring are the interesting essays about marrying open source
> with commerce (http://www.jabber.com/open_source/index.shtml), including
> an open manifesto - how to do business with open source community -
> (http://www.jabber.com/open_source/manifesto.shtml) and what it calls the
> open enterprise (http://www.jabber.com/open_source/enterprise.shtml).  The
> Jabber open source licence
> (http://www.jabber.com/open_source/license.shtml), derives from that
> employed by Netscape for its Mozilla open source software.
>
> Many see the Jabber project as one of the most important and ambitious
> open source undertakings around today.  For it is not only trying to
> promote a new, open IM standard - while embracing the leading proprietary
> variants - but to build an entire platform that allows peer-to-peer
> messaging to be employed for a huge range of tasks.  And against the
> increasingly dismal results of many longer-established open source
> companies like VA Linux or Turbolinux, Jabber.com offers a fascinating new
> test of whether it is possible to make money while remaining true to the
> spirit of free software.
>
> (c) 2001 Glyn Moody
>
> ends
>