[jdev] Re: Zeroconf and some thoughts..

[Jacek Konieczny]

On Fri, Apr 29, 2005 at 02:03:44PM +0200, Remko Troncon wrote:
> > I think that more than focusing on P2P Zeroconf IM systems (which is 
> > something different than XMPP/Jabber), we should look on how we can 
> > advertise the presence of a XMPP server (and its services like: allowed 
> > logon domains, supported authentication type etc) on the network.
> 
> I personally don't see much use of putting XMPP servers on a local network.

It is not about putting XMPP server for a local use (but this may be
also usefull), but for use a local fully-featured server without any
additionall configuration in the client. User should be able to start
his favorite client in his Internet-connected LAN and just enter
a nickname to be able to connect with any other Jabber user, or e.g.
other corporate user in another LAN.

It would be like DHCP providing the IP address or WPAD providing Web
proxy configuration data.

> P2P on the other hand seems a lot more interesting, and requires no server to
> be present at all.

But I don't think that would scale well. I have bad experience with
NetBIOS P2P networking...

P2P zeroconf is good for ad-hoc networks with no competent
administrator, but an easily discoverable server would be a much better
solution for a well-administrated network. Users should not be required
to ask administrator for configuration data and configure their machines
(as they are not required to manually enter IP address).

Many networks do have good administrators and let them keep the control,
still letting users use their IM clients with no manual configuration.

Protocol for automatical server discovery could also be used for XMPP
proxy discovery, which may be usefull in some enterprise networks.

Greets,
	Jacek