I believe that the industry, the press and even some governments have consistently looked to the IETF to produce a single standard for instant messaging and presence precisely because IM&P is an unusually balkanized application on the Internet - unlike email and the web and so on instant messaging is carried mostly by proprietary protocols; it grew up as a product rather than an interoperable standard. It would be nice if we were part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Starting from the idealistic conceit that we could eventually arrive at consensus on one IM&P protocol, the IETF went through a lengthy, bitter process (echoes of which were the root cause of much of the ugliness at the Jabber BoF) to arrive eventually at CPIM - which was a significant accomplishment - and three competing WGs that were CPIM-compliant. By most measures SIMPLE has been more successful than the other children of IMPP, and for that reason many outside consortia and major companies that previously espoused proprietary solutions have adopted a direction towards SIMPLE as the product of the IETF's attempt to standardize instant messaging. I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that chartering a new WG today that competes directly with SIMPLE would be taken by many to mean that the IETF still has not arrived at a workable solution (and no doubt some proponents of XMPP feel that to be the case). Will other protocols that, like Jabber, did not advance to WG status after the selection process in July of 2000 in IMPP (there were 15, IIRC) also come forward now requesting their own WGs? Should the IESG have chosen 7 IMPP child WGs to go forward instead of 3? All that said, I actually support the chartering of an XMPP WG, but I would prefer that it adopt a charter that is not just a "me too" for IM&P (competing directly with APEX, SIMPLE and PRIM) but rather one that focuses on unique competencies of the Jabber approach. Chartering something along the lines of general XML transport, as was discussed at the Jabber BoF, could be quite complementary to SIP, SIMPLE and no doubt many other groups in the IETF, and this would most certainly satisfy the goal of "helping Jabber out". In any event, I doubt that chartering a fifth (!) currently active working group specifically focused on IM&P is likely to shed much new light on the problem. Jon Peterson NeuStar, Inc. (admittedly) SIMPLE co-chair > -----Original Message----- > From: Marshall Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 4:55 PM > To: Richard Shockey > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Marshall Rose > Subject: Re: Jabber BOF afterthoughts > > > [ lots of stuff deleted that was designed to distract... ] > > > But I wish that those proponents of a Jabber WG would > understand that some > > of us in the SIP community have some real concerns about > the effect or > > perceptions in the marketplace that chartering this work in > the IETF might > > have. They are real and probably cloud our thinking ..but simply > dismissing > > them as irrelevant or stupid is not going to help gain consensus on > > chartering this work. > > richard - whether simple succeeds or fails will have nothing > to do with > whether the ietf helps out the jabber folks. each will > succeed or fail on > their own merits. > > i am at a loss to understand the extraordinary amount of fear > and loathing > from the simple camp that i witnessed in the jabber bof. i > could be more > unkind here, but i'm making an extraordinary effort to be inoffensive. > > regardless, there are numerous precedents to invalidate your > position that > we can work on only one. the most obvious is cpim, which explicitly > acknowledges the existence of many. > > however, if you insist that there can be only one, then > perhaps the logical > thing to do is for the iesg to put eveything on hold while we > do a detailed > analysis of the technical merits of the various approaches. > > oh, wait, we already did that, and the result was that we did > cpim. go back > two paragraphs. > > for myself, i think that the simple folks would be much > better served by > focusing on their work product than on political posturing. > > /mtr > >
