[JDEV] Jabber Transports - New Architecture

[Riviere Stéphane Jean]

My reply doesn't concern only transports, but anyway....

>Jabber suffers from central management... its distributed like email,
>but a central server still exists that is managed by an admin. This
>constrains the users to what the admin implements on the server. By
>using jabberd on localhost, it moves under the user's control and
>becomes more p2p-ish...

With P2P it's under the control of what the developers of the P2P software
do, not on what the P2P end users 2. Except if you create a system that can
propagate automatically any new service developped by a client.

If you want something running locally, using universal clients like gaim,
not jabber. You're not at the right place I think.

Another thing about scalability. e-mail infrastructure has proved its
scalabity, with dozens millions of users, P2P systems haven't achived this
(yet?).


>Granted this is not a problem now, but what happens when there are so
>many protocol extensions that it becomes impossible for admins to
>accomodate all the user's potential needs? What about a chess/game
>extension that is seen as needless on the main jabberd, but the protocol
>requires a jabberd to function? ... 

You don't add any protocol extension to the jabberd server. You add
services. The jabberd is just there to route the messages to the correct
users/services.
The chess game would have to be managed/understood by the clients. It would
travel into <message><x/><message> packets.

Is there any solution to such problems ? No. Extensions have to be supported
by the client, not the server.
A good thing would be to define a client plug-in API, with plug-ins that
could be downloaded from the server or from users/services. That would be
great. It could be called Jabblet :-)


Let's get back to the real world of IM now.
Do you really think that all the current big IM systems (Yahoo, AIM, ICQ,
MSN) will all survive ? I don't think so. Remember what happened with web
browsers !
Personnaly I think that only MSN and Jabber will survive...


Stéphane.