[JDEV] Account information storage, plaintext?

[Justin Karneges]

> >But I'd really like to just do away with in-band registration
> >altogether.
>
> That's a bit drastic I think. What's so bad about it?

>From a purist point of view, in-band registration doesn't make any sense.  You 
don't go registering accounts via IMAP either.  I think this is why the IETF 
drafts of XMPP have left it out.

Realistically, it is not horrible, and I'm guessing Jabber only has it to 
compete with ICQ (the only legacy system that also has in-band registration, 
AFAIK), but it does put extra effort on the client and server developers.  If 
we axe in-band registration, we can shift the effort to the administrators, 
who can develop pretty websites that guide the user along.  This would also 
simplify client development, as there would be less of a need for new user 
wizards, explanation of what a JID is, etc, as the pretty website would take 
care of it.

As a client developer, I would love to see this gone.

On a related note, I think we should make it a requirement that for a Jabber 
server to be listed in the official jabber.org public server listing, it 
should have some website to back it up.  This way the user knows where to go 
if he needs help or other.  Without any method of contacting the admin, we 
could potentially be giving bad recommendations.  A user should understand 
the community that surrounds his particular free server, so that he doesn't 
find himself switching servers in a week (a painful and _frequent_ experience 
of Jabber newcomers).  In-band registration is partly to blame here, as it 
allows a server to get away with not having a "front", but I'd like to see 
this changed.

-Justin