Re: [apps-discuss] IETF technical plenary: the end of application protocols

[Dave Cridland <[e-mail]>]

On Mon Mar 21 17:51:01 2011, Scott Brim wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 13:33, Hannes Tschofenig
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > We describe a model that is deployed today (the Web model with  
> HTTP/HTML + JavaScript) that allows shifting the interoperability  
> need away from the client.
> 
> I suspect this is the gist.  It used to be that we required standard
> protocols at the endpoint.  As Dave's mention of IM clients shows,
> that's necessary if there is no coordination among services.  But if
> there is coordination among services, such that using any one  
> service
> allows you to reach anyone on any service, then you don't need
> standardized UIs.

With XMPP, an XMPP server will talk with other XMPP servers - this  
means that HTTP cannot be used. (And if anyone suggests S2S/BOSH I  
will throw up).

But XMPP clients also talk with other clients, in sometimes  
client-specific ways over variable services.

Thus to no small degree the XMPP experience is governed by the  
client, rather than the server, and the overall experience is most  
certainly a product of both.

This is also similar with mail - you may think of email as just a  
blob of functionality, but I can assure you that there are both good  
and bad email clients, and good and bad email services.

By restricting client/server to be just browser-based, you eliminate  
the ability of users to select a user interface of their choice  
orthogonal to the service, and you also create a down-pressure on  
functionality via standardized protocols - hence Google Mail's IMAP  
support is very much a lowest common denominator - it is sufficient,  
instead of offering the richer support it might.

This is not to say that a web-based interface is not a good thing,  
and a useful thing, too - there are plenty such interfaces for both  
email and XMPP. In fact, in XMPP there are many more because we  
devised standards for how browser-based clients could connect to  
servers (see BOSH, for example).

Dave.
-- 
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