[JDEV] Jabber Advocacy and looking for M$ Windows client

[dman]

On Sat, Mar 30, 2002 at 11:39:47AM -0500, Jim Seymour wrote:
| "Ashvil" <ashvil at i3connect.net> wrote:
| > 
| [Julian Missig <julian at jabber.org> had written:]
| > > I've certainly tried a few times, but we just don't have a good enough
| > > handle on why the general population should care about Jabber.
| > > Personally, I'm having a hard enough time selling it to fellow open
| > > source developers, the same people who refuse to MS Office documents
| > > because they're closed! (Yet they're fine using AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo!)
| > 
| > Why ? What do they not understand here. Can we this find out. What are their
| > objections. If Jabber cannot win on it's home turf, then it a very serious
| > issue.
| [snip]
| 
| Hanging out in #gaim on OPN, here are the two reasons I hear most
| often:
| 
|     1. "I'd use it, but nobody else I know does.  All my friends
| 	are on (AIM|MSN|ICQ|Y!M)."  and "I don't know anybody on
| 	Jabber."

This is an issue for me.  All my friends are on AIM (no one uses ICQ
anymore except for porn spammers).

|     2. "Where is/are the server(s)?"

This is what kept me off of jabber for a long time.  I read about it
on jabber.org and liked the concept, but I couldn't find any form to
sign up with!  I was familiar with the AIM and ICQ method of providing
a web form for creating an account, then using that account from the
client program.  Since my boss wants an IM system internally, he asked
me to look into it and check out jabber.  Thus I installed the daemon
and found out that creating an account is so astoundingly simple!  Who
ever is in charge of the web site should insert a prominent link
titled "how to register" or something like that on the front page.  In
the page that links to, explain how to register with a jabber server,
and provide a list of public servers (or link to the list).

|     and "It's not stable.  I keep getting kicked off."

I do have trouble starting the daemon on my system.  First, it doesn't
fork like daemons ought to.  As a result, the init script must put it
in the backgrounds.  Due to that, the init script has no way of
knowing if the daemon started successfully or not and reporting
failures.

Second, when the daemon fails to start, it leave the pid file behind.
Always.  Not just when it crashes (which hasn't happened to often for
me, and I've got unstable snapshots of aim-t in it).  If the config
file has a typo in it, jabberd will properly report the error and then
leave the pidfile behind, which prevents it from starting again.

Third, I have no idea why the initscript fails because if I run
'jabberd' on the command line it works just fine.

| The first I counter by trying to improve Gaim's Jabber plugin support.
| Being a multi-protocol IM client, it's easy for people running it to
| add another account.
[...]
| In the final analysis: part of the problem is certainly a "chicken and
| egg" delimma.  This will only be solved by steadily and mercilessly
| chipping away at it, user-by-user.

Yes, interoperability is the primary solution to this problem.  First,
if the jabber account can talk to the other services, then there is
no more hindrance for the people who would be interested in jabber
based on its technical and licensing merits.  Second, if the clients
are good enough (in your example, gaim users can still use the same
client they already like) then even that won't be a hindrance.

| And there'd have to be dependable, easy-to-use, easy-to-install, easy-
| to-configure, and reasonably familiar-looking clients for them to
| offer.

Yes.  Gabber rocks, but unfortunately isn't available for windows yet.

| May sound simple, but take it from somebody whose been "asking
| around" about M$-Win clients for possible deployment at work: it ain't
| necessarily so.

Have you found one yet?  (this is my main reason for responding)  I
want to get my family at home to start using jabber.  At the moment
only my oldest brother uses any IM at all and it's AIM.  My mom used
it for the first time yesterday (to talk to me, who is using gabber
:-)) and really likes it.  She isn't a computer geek in the least.  It
would be best for her to _start_ on the right foot, rather than begin
with AIM and later try to convince her to change.  I've heard WinJab
mentioned a lot.  I briefly saw it once.  Personally I don't like the
way the GUI is organized.  I like the tradional style of having a
tall, narrow, window with just the contact list and then having a
separate window for chats.  What windows client(s) do people
recommend?
 
-D

-- 

Micros~1 :  
 For when quality, reliability 
  and security just aren't
   that important!