[jdev] Proposal for a solution to transport rosters

[Bart van Bragt]

Justin Karneges wrote:
> While this would certainly work, I think a server-side extension would be 
> better.

Certainly is, but at the moment I'm not really looking forward to 
converting people to Jabber because I (or they) will have to put up with 
having to click on 'Add' and/or 'Auth' a few hundred (!) times when 
adding an MSN/ICQ gateway.

It would be great if this could be solved on the server side but I don't 
really see that happening within now and a year, especially with the 
current state of the jabberd2 project. Furthermore that will give an 
inconsistent userexperience. Some users will be able to add transports 
without a hassle (up to date server) and others (with the same client) 
will have to click on silly buttons for half an hour to be able to talk 
to their existing contacts.

As far as I can see James solution doesn't break anything if 
clients/transports/servers don't implement his solution, if a transport 
and a client have implemented his (and Tijns) changes then this will 
immediately improve the enduser experience a _lot_ and this can happen 
within a few months... When a better solution arrives this can 
effortlessly replace/supersede James' 'workaround'.

In short: Hip, hip, hurray for James' proposal and lets start thinking 
about a better roster management schema. IMO there are a few more things 
to be improved in the roster department, for instance I really don't 
like the fact that I have all my 300 contacts available when I'm using 
Jabber on my Palm over a GSM connection. Shared groups would be great, 
etc, etc.

Bart