[JDEV] Webpresence revisited [Was: JabberCentral]

[Dougal Campbell]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Dave Smith wrote:

>
> > Has anyone thought about creating a centralized user directory? There
> > could be an optional s2s component for the server implementations, and
> > perhaps a direct c2s protocol that clients could implement, as well.
> >
> > If such a project were started, it would be a good idea to fold presence
> > into it as well.
>
> Sounds like you'd prefer a centralized server for all of Jabber? Esp. once
> you start talking about folding presence into a centralized server... :)

No, I don't want one central server for all of Jabber. Each server would
still maintain its own local directory. And participation in such a
superJUD would be completely voluntary. It would just be a convenient
"value-add" to Jabber's usability.

> In all seriousness, the solution to this problem _must_ embrace the fact
> that Jabber is decentralized. Given the difficulty with creating
> decentralized datastores, my guess would be that we will have to adapt
> some of the search protocols currently used on p2p networks and create a
> federation of JUDs that cross-search each other. It wouldn't be perfect,
> but  it's better than what we have.

Sure, something similar to the P2P systems might be good.

Decentralization is a strong point for Jabber. But J. Random User
doesn't care about that. He says "when I used ICQ, I could search for
other ICQ users, and I didn't have to worry about what server they were
on." I'm not saying that a centralized JUD necessarily should be part of
the official Jabber effort. I'm just saying that it could be a useful
additional service, if somebody wants to set something like that up.

PGM mentioned some sort of precence bcc feature that I'm not familiar
with. I don't have time to look into it right now, but I'll try to do so
later.

-- 
Ernest MacDougal Campbell III, MCP+I, MCSE <dougal at gunters.org>
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