[Foundation] Position PaperThis document can also be found at
Adam Theo
theo at theoretic.com
Thu Jul 25 17:33:23 CDT 2002
Am I the last one? Yay! Oh, well, maybe mine is sooo good that you all
will forgive me. And hey, I can always use the excuse that I couldn't do
it earlier because I was working so hard on Jabber. :-)
I am Adam Theo, 23 years old, and from Tallahassee FL USA. I am the
primary culprit behind [Theoretic Solutions (1)], and my loves include
long walks, the [science of complex systems (2)], and listening to the
[Foo Fighters (3)]. I am often on the jdev chatroom as "theo" or posting
to standards-jig about some typo or lacking feature I found in a JEP.
I am a relative newbie to Jabber, having just came in after the 1.4.0
server release, but have been knee-deep in it ever since. I was
initially interested in Jabber both as a user to use AIM and ICQ at
once, and for my ideas for the future of online communications (which
are slowly becomming the [Crown (4)]).
I am running for both the Council primarily to make sure good ideas make
their way into the future of Jabber, and the Board to make sure Jabber
is seen with all the potential I know it has.
Background: I have little formal education, having dropped out of high
school and later received my GED. I also have no technical work
experience, having been employed only at fast food places and
restaurants. Thankfully that is looking up, with a contract sponsorship
from [Andre Durand (5)] to work on the open [PingID digital identity
platform (6)]. Three years ago, in my troubled youth, I committed a long
series of bad check and credit card fraud crimes, and went to county
jail for four months. Huh? What do you mean I'm supposed to say these
things for a political campaign...?
Contributions: Although I've only been with Jabber for a little over a
year, I've made it a huge part of my life, and come to know it like the
back of my hand. I use that knowledge to its fullest potential in many
areas.
* Protocol: I have become very involved with the development of the
protocol in both the user-friendliness and Internet infastructure areas
because I hate unnecessary complexity, preferring elegance in all things.
o I have been working heavily in the protocol in an attempt to
make it more user-friendly with my [Jabber Icons spec (7)], and plan to
get into the File Transfer and User Avatar issues.
o I have been working to build my [Jabber Environments (8)] idea
by first making sure the Atomic Protocols are created. This has begun by
heavily [critiquing Disco (9)], and resulted in creating [my own PubSub
mechanism (10)].
* Advocacy: I have also become very active in advocacy and promoting
Jabber to outside projects and developers because I no longer believe in
the "build it and they will come" philosophy, and the more minds working
with Jabber, the better it will become.
o I have so far successfully convinced the [DotGNU Project (11)]
to [fully adopt Jabber as a routing transport (12)] equal with all
others, and most of their developers are much more excited about Jabber
than the limited and legacy HTTP protocol. Jabber will make a huge
splash in the world as DotGNU grows.
o I have also been promoting Jabber to the open [PingID Project
(13)], which I have recently been sponsored to work on, in the hopes of
it becomming a major routing transport just as it has with DotGNU.
o Heavily promoted Jabber at O'Reilly's ET2001 conference, helping
many people who were mildly interested in Jabber to fully realize its
potential.
o I will continue to take Jabber to other open source projects,
and seek Council and Board positions to give those endeavors an official
weight, which will be all the more powerful and useful.
* Code: I have tried my hand at programming and scripting, but after
a year of it, I had to accept I just couldn't grok code. Now I try to
find other ways to contribute to the codebases of the Jabber platform.
o I originally organized the [JabberSMTP (14)] project with the
help of Rob Norris and later Nick Perez, but I really can't claim any
credit for it except for some shoddy customer service (they really did
all the work). Hahaha... Me? Code? I couldn't if my life depended on it,
sorry.
o I pushed to get the Jabberd v1.4.2 server re-GPL'ed for the
DotGNU Project. It had previously been only JOSL since the 1.2 line.
* Social: I suppose my real calling to be on the Council and Board is
that I often grace the halls of jdev chat and "hear the voice of the
people", as well as take photo shots holding cute babies. Oh, and I'm a
really smart guy. Ah, I'm such a people-person, and so modest, too...
Concerns: Although I see the awesome potential of Jabber, not everyone
does, and unfortunately for rightful reasons. These problems need to be
fixed before Jabber can take the world on by storm.
* Technical: With enough brainpower anything is solvable. We just
need more brainpower, is all...
o I want Jabber to evolve and grow into a generic routing
transport, away from its clunky IM beginnings. I believe it cannot do
this suddenly, but must gradually change bit by bit with a guiding
vision. The first step is to create the Atomic Protocols as per my
[Jabber Environments(15)] proposal, which involves Disco, PubSub, Auth,
Perms, and others.
o Jabber must at all times keep usability in mind. Not only
simplicity for developers, but also trying to think like and end user
and develop for them.
* Legal: While the technical issues are fixed with pure brainpower,
the legal ones often involve much of the human element to solve...
o I am very concerned about the Jabber trademark. I firmly believe
it should belong to the Jabber community through the JSF, and will work
every step of the way to make sure that happens.
o I am also concerned about the recent work with the IETF. I
understand that many members have worked very hard to have the IETF
adopt Jabber, but I could only support this as long as the JSF retained
development ownership over the Jabber protocol, instead of handing it
over to a IETF Working Group.
* Promotional: As if legal issues didn't involve enough human
interaction, promotional issues are all about thinking like a human, but
unlike yourself...
o The Jabber documentation needs serious work. Not only in
substance but also in organization. Jabber is a technology for a wide
range of people, and the documentation needs to show this by allowing
people to immediately find answers and convincing arguments right when
the need them without having to wade through highly technical
manuscripts or user client guides if they don't need them.
(1) http://www.theoretic.com
(2)
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Philosophy/Philosophy_of_Science/Philosophy_of_Physics/Complex_Systems/
(3) http://www.foofighters.com
(4) http://www.theoretic.com/index.cgi?Crown
(5) http://www.andredurand.com
(6) http://www.pingid.org
(7) http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0038.html
(8) http://www.theoretic.com/index.cgi?Jabber_Environments
(9) http://mailman.jabber.org/pipermail/standards-jig/2002-July/001153.html
(10) http://www.theoretic.com/index.cgi?Jabber_Subscribe
(11) http://www.dotgnu.info
(12) http://www.dotgnu.info/pipermail/announce/2002-May/000004.html
(13) http://www.pingid.org
(14) http://www.theoretic.com/index.cgi?JabberSMTP
(15) http://www.theoretic.com/index.cgi?Jabber_Environments
--
/\ Adam Theo, Age 23, Tallahassee FL USA
//\\ Email & Jabber: theo at theoretic.com
// \\ (Boycotting AOL, therefore no AIM or ICQ)
=//====\\=
// || \\ Theoretic Solutions: http://www.theoretic.com
|| "Building Ideas by Bringing them Together"
|| Jabber Protocol: http://www.jabber.org
|| "The Next Generation Communications Protocol"
|| "A Free-Market Socialist Patriotic American Buddhist"
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