[Council] meeting notes

[Peter Saint-Andre]

Summary of conclusions from the Jabber Council meeting held 2003-10-28:

1. What is Jabber?

   Jabber is a set of protocols and technologies for streaming XML. Note
   that "protocols" is plural here: there is not one Jabber protocol, 
   there are multiple protocols ("the MUC protocol" etc.). XMPP is the 
   IETF's formalization of the core streaming XML protocol, but that 
   term does not supersede or replace Jabber, which refers to the loose
   confederation of streaming XML protocols and technologies. In this
   sense, XMPP is just another Jabber protocol, although more core than
   most of the others (indeed even XMPP is made up of several protocols
   since both iq:roster and iq:privacy are distinct protocols).

2. Core protocol vs. extension

   This is not a particularly useful distinction, since one person's 
   extension is another person's core (depending on the application). 
   It's more useful to refer to "protocols" and not differentiate
   between them at this level. A JEP simply defines a protocol that 
   adds to the existing base of Jabber technologies. What is core or
   not is determined by the application, and also by the number of
   other protocols that are built on top of it.

3. What makes a good IM system?

   We know IM, and we can define what any self-respecting IM system
   needs to implement. However, we don't need protocol suites for this,
   we need implementation guides (perhaps one for bare XMPP, one for 
   full IM clients, one for mobile clients, one for servers, etc.). 
   It would be good to keep these to a minimum to forestall confusion.
   They could be informational JEPs.

4. Informational vs. standards-track vs. ???

   Consensus is that there are really two kinds of JEPs: protocol JEPs
   and informational JEPs. Still need to discuss what to do about the
   existing "historical" JEPs -- they are protocol JEPs but perhaps 
   need a special status (not clear if they are "deprecated" or not).
   But all protocol JEPs are to be treated equally (except maybe the
   humorous ones). ("All protocols are created equal, endowed by the 
   Jabber Council with certain inalienable rights....")

Feel free to correct or supplement.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.php