[JDEV] File transfers

[Tijl Houtbeckers]

---------- Original Message ----------

>Given a certain set of assumptions which make up our model, I'll agree that
>the bandwidth _flows_ are different, in direction and duration but not in
>magnitude. I do not think, however, that cost should be different.
>
>The assumptions are:
>
>(1) Each ISP deploys its own Jabber server
>(2) ISPs incur no per-megabyte charge to transfer data between nodes
>directly connected to it
>(3) The one-time hardware/engineering cost for the ISP's NOC to internally
>handle a larger amount of data, but over a longer time, is acceptable.
>
> [rest of the well written cost considerations]

I was about to point this about myself (was behind on the list a bit after this manny 
mails about the subject) but I'm glad you did before me since I don't think it could be 
said any clearer then this. I hope this puts to rest the people saying that p2p is 
*always* better then inband data.

Further more I'd like to point out that jabber is not just meant as some kind of instant 
message server pushing back and forth messages no longer then a few sentences. If 
that is the case then why for example are we sending GPG encrypted messages 
(they tend to be somewhat bigger as normal messages) through the server if we can 
save bandwidth for the jabberserver and do that p2p?

This doesn't mean I say we should send 600MB AVI files inband through jabber, but 
there are other cases besides the firewall/NAT situation in wich it can be usefull. 
For example clients that are limited to one socket connection only, or users in a 
corporate network that are so firewalled in they can only connect to a (specific) jabber 
server because it is allowed, and do not have acces to any other ports like 80. Or 
clients that want to implement features that require the transfer of small files (like 
icons or sounds) without wanting to implement HTTP or HTTP server (after all one 
goal of Jabber is to keep things simple for the client!).

This ofcourse still leaves the need for better p2p signaling. Best would be ofcourse to 
combine both of them, letting both clients indicate wich options they have and then 
choosing the best one together. Maybe some discussion on how this signalling can be 
done best is a good idea rather then argueing about wether inband is good or bad..

Our ultimate goal would ofcourse be some sort of implementation for this and a JEP. 
I'd be willing to put some time into writing a simple application for this at some point, 
that demonstrates  inband & p2p (& p2s2p?) capabilities. I'll be at Jabberconf Europe 
next week, and quite busy after that for a while, but I'll keep an eye on the list to see if 
anyone is intrested. Does anyone know if there is already a constructive discussion 
about this subject going on somewhere other then here? (another list perhaps?)

If we do get a JEP for this one day and I'll have some free time on my hands maybe I'll 
write an external component for jabberd that can convert inband data to/from HTTP 
on the fly :P