Re: [DotGNU]To What Degree Jabber?

[Norbert Bollow]

Adam Theo <address@hidden> wrote:

> I'd like to ask everyone to what degree they think Jabber should be 
> adopted by DotGNU?

If we adopt it at all (and yes, I'm all in favor of that:), then
I think that we should use it for everything where it makes
sense to use it.  In particular, it should then be the default
for all communication between DotGNU components on different
machines.

At the same time, DotGNU servers and applications should also
make all their functionality available through XML-RPC and/or
SOAP, for purposes of easy interoperation with programs on
webservice platforms that may not support Jabber, and to have
a robust way of accessing this functionality which will not
be affected by changes to the Jabber protocol (after all, the
idea is to use jabber:middleware, which is not in final form
yet.)

As a first step (after making the strategy decision to endorse
Jabber), a webservices+middleware protocols lib should be created
which will give the a programmer a single API for making or
decoding requests that are made in any of these protocols.

Greetings, Norbert.


> There has been talk about using it as the default 
> network transport by a couple of people, and using it to integrate other 
> systems and protocols together. This is great since Jabber is perfect 
> for this sort of thing. But I'd like to get a broader concensus. Here 
> are some options:
> 
>   - Use Jabber as the Instant Communications/Messaging platform for 
> DotGNU. This is where Jabber has its roots, and it is very good at 
> reliable, fast communication between people.
>   - Use Jabber as a secondary transport mechanisms to route XML and 
> other data around the distributed DotGNU platform. Jabber is very 
> capable of being a generic XML router, and this is where it has been 
> heading for the past few months. A working example of this is Picto 
> [http://picto.weblogger.com/], an open dictionary that uses Jabber to 
> route data between its distributed servers, as well as get input from 
> remote users.
>   - Use Jabber as the default/main transport mechanism. Jabber has alot 
> of strengths, even more than HTTP, in my opinion, and fewer weaknesses. 
> HTTP was never meant for the kind of heavy-duty session management and 
> flexible routing that DotGNU is going to need. Jabber is. It's a gamble, 
> sure. Jabber is a new protocol, only being fully stable for a year now, 
> but it has grown tremendously, with an estimated 100,000 servers in use 
> today and dozens of developer tools available. It won't be fading away, 
> it's here to stay :-) So the only issue here is whether you think Jabber 
> is the best protocol to rely on.
>   - Use Jabber as a glue to tie together other protocols and systems. 
> Jabber has a long history of being a common ground for competing 
> systems. Traditionally these systems have just been proprietary Instant 
> Messgaing systems, but the same rules used there are already being 
> applied elsewhere. There is functionality to send wireless pager 
> messages, e-mail, and even communicate with the Groove platform. Jabber 
> can help DotGNU be interoperable with .NET and the Liberty Alliance 
> platform.