[jdev] Potential partner for server development?

[Jochen Wolters]

Reading the comments on this list about ISPs deploying Jabber servers 
got me thinking, especially the point about ease-of-setup of the 
server. Why not try to get a commercial company on-board to help us a 
gain a bit of momentum with Jabber development:

Apple already uses the Jabber protocol for its 
Rendezvous/ZeroConf-based peer-to-peer chat in its iChat AV client. 
They have also officially announced that Mac OS X Server 10.4 "Tiger" 
will include a Jabber-enabled "iChat Server:"

"Based on the open source Jabber project, the new iChat server in Tiger 
Server lets your company protect its internal communications by 
defining its own namespace, and use SSL/TLS encryption to ensure 
privacy. The iChat server works with both the iChat client in Mac OS X 
Tiger and popular open source clients available for Windows, Linux and 
even PDAs."

<http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/>

Since their web browser Safari also "draws on KHTML and KJS software 
from the KDE open source project," I'd assume that Apple will not build 
their Jabber server from scratch.

<http://www.apple.com/safari/>

IMHO both Apple and the Jabber community would benefit if there was a 
collaboration here: Apple may help improve the server code (whatever 
server they may use) and promote the Jabber brand; also, providing a 
fully XMPP compliant (as certified or endorsed by the JSF), 
easy-to-configure and stable server would help them market the Xserve 
machines as the perfect "plug-in-and-go" IM solution for small to 
medium-sized businesses like creative agencies that mostly use Apple 
products anyway.

Possibly, this will not generate the same mindshare for Jabber that a 
collaboration with an ISP would provide, but, then again, Apple is 
known for its marketing (and hype ;) ) savvy, so it would be nice if 
Jabber could benefit from their brand name "shine" a bit.

So, I wonder: has the JSF contacted Apple about such a collaboration in 
any way?


GreetinX,

Jochen.


-- 
"Our gut-level distaste for something new is less about our reaction to
  the thing in question than it is about our fears of abandoning the
  familiar and comfortable."                             -- Andy Ihnatko