[JDEV] JabberCentral [Was: Trillian Poll]

[Iain shigeoka]

On Monday, Jun 16, 2003, at 08:05 US/Pacific, Bart van Bragt wrote:

> Michael Brown wrote:
>> Maybe I am - and Rachel can correct me if that is the case - but in 
>> the
>> context of her previous posts I understand that she was advocating a 
>> portal
>> site run by the general Jabber community (maybe called jabber.net) 
>> that
>> would choose one client above all other clients as some sort of 
>> "Official"
>> client for Jabber.  This is what I am strongly opposed to.
> Of course the JSF can never point out an 'official client', not as 
> long as they don't create a client themselfs. But IMO if they would do 
> that it would harm their position IMO. It would also make Jabber less 
> open.

Yup, in my original post ages ago (last friday?) I think it opposes the 
goal of the JSF being a neutral standards body. But I think it benefits 
the Jabber community as a whole to have such a portal. IMO, the goal of 
such an effort would be building market share for Jabber users; grow 
the Jabber network. Some official place that, if you want to have 
someone experience 'jabber' and is a non-technical end user, you can 
point them, and they'll have a pleasant experience. e.g. go to 
jabber.net and it will tell you how to get online and chatting with 
Jabber. The user should be able to write down 'jabber.net' on a napkin 
go home, type it into their browser, and get online.

> The main point in this 'discussion' is the fact that rachel said 
> 'official client' (mind the quotes!!) while (IMO) she meant; 
> recommended client.  IMO the JSF or jabber.net or jabbercentral.com 
> could recommend some client for particular user groups (people that 
> need perfect interoperation with legacy systems, Mac users, Windows 
> users, people that want the bleeding edge).

For this effort, I think there needs to be a clear path. You may be 
able to (in fine print) show there are alternatives, but the main path 
for 99.9% of the users should be to get them, with a minimum number of 
clicks, choices, and reading, to a downloaded client and online and 
chatting. choice is bad for this program because choice requires 
knowledge which is going to be more text, or other things that slows 
them down in getting online.

Of course, anyone can setup such a portal/service. The 'official'-ness 
of this particular one is jabber.org should point newbies to it, and 
marketing and such will use it as the portal to send people when they 
want to 'try out Jabber'.

> Anyway. IMO it would be nice if we could take a step back before we 
> are going to attack eachother on semantics..  What do we want, where 
> do we want it and who is going to create/maintain it? And what does 
> the JSF think of this? And eeeh, why is this discussion taking place 
> on jdev? :D IMO the marketing-jig is more appropriate..

Why we want it: to increase jabber usage (grow the jabber network)

Who should create/maintain it: a new, separate organization 
bootstrapped by the JSF. this jabber.net org should take over the 
Jabber community maintenance aspects of the current JSF. I don't think 
it can be JSF because who would want to sponsor it if it's using their 
competitor's client/server... :) The name 'JSF' should be transferred 
to a new org dedicated to Jabber open source software development and 
taking over those JSF resources currently related to it (jabber studio, 
jdev@, etc). And the existing pure standards group should be renamed 
'XMPP standards group' or something... sorry I digress. :)

What does the JSF  think about it: well, this particular member thinks 
it's a great idea... perhaps essential

Why on jdev: I have no idea. I actually think it belongs in members@ 
and crossposted there but it never transferred

-iain