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2005-08-30
Scheming
xmpp: URI/IRI redux.
While updating draft-saintandre-xmpp-iri-00 today in response to feedback received on the uri@w3.org mailing list, I decided to add an xmpp: URI/IRI (which is it??) to my jabber.org page, verifying that I'd followed Justin Kirby's instructions for adding spec handlers to Firefox. So I clicked the link and, lo and behold, Adium launched (even though I told Firefox to launch iChat for xmpp: URIs). So Adium must have added itself to some registry somewhere on my PowerBook. Then I deleted Adium and when I clicked the link, I got that old "xmpp is not a registered protocol" message even though I did register the protocol, dammit. Hmph.
Posted on 2005-08-30 at 17:05. File under jabber.
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Sponsors
Keeping the JSF in business.
Both DreamHost and Zettai recently renewed their sponsorship of the Jabber Software Foundation, which I very much appreciate. DreamHost has long offered Jabber hosting in additional to traditional web hosting, which is one reason why I host all my websites with them (another reason is that they offer superb, friendly service at a great price!). They're also planning to offer a hosted SIP service so they can fully support the emerging standards consensus of Jabber for instant messaging and SIP+RTP for voice. Zettai also has a long-standing commitment to open source and open standards, and they recently started to offer Jabber hosting as well. Many thanks to DreamHost and Zettai for their support.
Posted on 2005-08-30 at 13:11. File under jabber.
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Got RDF?
SPARQL over XMPP.
Chatting with Dan Brickley just now, he mentioned that he's interested in sending SPARQL over XMPP so that folks can query things like each other's local RDF databases for information about photos, calendar events, tunes, etc. Here's how I think we'd do it (using examples similar to those at Dave Beckett's demo page):
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First, find out the resource of the SPARQL-aware script on the other side. Your script can get presence from all of your friend's XMPP resources and then send a Service Discovery query to each one in order to figure out which one supports our little custom namespace (or of course you can cache that info using Entity Capabilities). Here we'll assume that each side has done the necessary discovery and we have two SPARQL-aware resources: stpeter@jabber.org/sparql and danbri@jabber.org/rdfdb (no need to settle on conventional resource names since we have service discovery).
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Dan wants to know the Jabber IDs of the people in my FOAF file, so he sends me an IQ-get that looks something like this (the xmlns is just a placeholder for now, note that we have to escape angle brackets in the SPARQL query):
<iq type='get' from='danbri@jabber.org/rdfdb' to='stpeter@jabber.org/sparql' id='sparkling1'> <query xmlns='http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/'> PREFIX foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> SELECT ?jabberID WHERE { ?x rdf:type foaf:Person . ?x foaf:name ?jabberID } </query> </iq> -
Now my SPARQL-aware script returns an IQ-result using the SPARQL Query Results XML Format:
<iq type='result' from='stpeter@jabber.org/sparql' to='danbri@jabber.org/rdfdb' id='sparkling1'> <sparql xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/sparql-results#'> <head> <variable name='jabberID'> </head> <results ordered="false" distinct="false"> <result> <binding name='jabberID'> <uri>xmpp:dizzyd@jabber.org</uri> </binding> </result> <result> <binding name='jabberID'> <uri>xmpp:jer@jabber.org</uri> </binding> </result> <result> <binding name='jabberID'> <uri>xmpp:pgmillard@jabber.org</uri> </binding> </result> </results> </sparql> </iq>
That's a first pass, anyway. Further experimentation probably necessary.
Posted on 2005-08-30 at 12:07. File under jabber.
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Assurance #19
Yet another CAcert member has been verified.
This morning I initiated Bob Gilson into the ways of CAcert by assuring him (verifying his identity) in the web of trust. As of now I'm the #104 assurer. Gotta keep busy... :-)
Posted on 2005-08-30 at 10:47. File under technology.
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Remembrance
August 30, 1999.
Six years ago today, my father died. I still remember.
Posted on 2005-08-30 at 10:17. File under personal.
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2005-08-26
Yahoo: Open or Closed?
To federate or not to federate, that is the question.
Jeremy Zawodny gave a great keynote address at OSCON about how Yahoo is committed to becoming more open -- a sentiment reinforced by a recent blog entry in which he pointed out that Yahoo is working to break down the walls between Yahoo and the rest of the Net by including more content that is not hosted by Yahoo.
That may be true of content, but what about communication? Yahoo Mail users can send emails to people at any domain on the Internet, but when it comes to instant messaging (plus voice and video) the walls are still as strong and thick as ever.
Now Google has handed Yahoo an opportunity to join an open communications network by federating its IM/VoIP service with Google Talk, EarthLink's Vling, SIPphone's Gizmo Project and after that perhaps large XMPP-based services such as those offered by BellSouth, Wanadoo.fr, Orange, Portugal Telecom, Sapo, and so on. Yahoo's Russell Beattie loves Jabber and thinks it would be a great thing if Yahoo joins the emerging open communications network. It seems to me that it's only a matter of time before Yahoo goes open. So why not get out in front on interoperability rather than being dragged kicking and screaming into the brave new world of open communications? Nothing says that Yahoo Messenger would need to change at all to interoperate with Google Talk or other services, since Yahoo could talk XMPP for server-to-server communications while retaining its own protocols internally. (Although in the long term they'd probably want to refactor Yahoo Messenger to support the emerging technology consensus of XMPP for messaging and presence plus SIP -- or the XMPP TINS extension gatewayed to SIP -- for voice/video negotiation and RTP for the multimedia transport.)
Yahoo has a lot to gain from joining the coming open communications network, but the choice is theirs: to federate or not to federate, to be open or closed, to break down the walls or build them up. Jeremy says: "The Internet is a better place when we knock down those walls -- not build them." I couldn't agree more.
Posted on 2005-08-26 at 21:12. File under jabber.
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Assurances #15 - 18
More CAcerting.
This week I assured four more people at Jabber Inc.: Joe Hildebrand, Constantin Nickonov, Walter Domes, and Chris Newton. We now have four CAcert assurers at 1899 Wynkoop Street: me, Andrew Diederich, Matt Miller, and Joe Hildebrand. Finally, one-stop shopping for assurances in Lower Downtown! If you're in Denver, stop by sometime and we can get you all set up.
Posted on 2005-08-26 at 19:17. File under technology.
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Welcome!
Getting started with Google Talk.
Lots of folks want to try out the Jabber-based goodness of Google Talk. The problem is that you need a Gmail account to try it out, and Gmail is invitation-only. Here's a solution: if lots of folks who use both Jabber and Gmail volunteer to provide invitations, then pretty much everyone will be able to join in the fun. Plus it's a great way for Jabberites to welcome Google to the community. So if you want to try Google Talk but you don't have a Gmail account, do the following:
- Download a Jabber client for your favorite computing platform.
- Create a Jabber account on one of the free servers (usually you can do this just by trying to log in with your preferred Jabber ID, but if that doesn't work, ping me and I can create an account for you on the jabber.org server).
- Send me a Jabber message containing your email address -- my Jabber ID is stpeter@jabber.org.
- I'll send you a Gmail invitation.
It's as easy as that!
Posted on 2005-08-26 at 14:47. File under jabber.
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2005-08-24
The Talk of the Net
XMPP @ Google and the promise of an open communications network.
I don't have much to add about Google Talk beyond what I said in Jabber Journal #24 and various mailing list posts. As always, there are some technical misconceptions (it's not the lack of DNS SRV records that is preventing server-to-server connectivity -- it's simply that the folks at Google haven't coded s2s support yet), complaints about missing features (it's an early beta, people!), and comments that simply miss the point. And what is the point? As both Michael Robertson and Mark Ward observe, it's open communications. The fact that Google Talk will not rival the userbase of AIM, MSN, Skype, or Yahoo immediately (if ever) does not especially matter. But Google is not attempting to build yet another closed, proprietary silo -- they are working to enable freedom of conversation through the use of open standards such as XMPP and intelligent federation with the likes of Earthlink, the Gizmo Project, and various other open-minded IM/VoIP providers (including, we hope, the wider Jabber/XMPP network). Together, an open network that's committed to interoperability has the potential to dwarf any one closed service. Eventually, one or more of the closed services will decide to open up in order to connect to the network -- perhaps Yahoo (even some Yahoo employees hope so), perhaps Skype, perhaps even MSN or AOL if enough early adopters join the network (such as the major XMPP deployments in the financial sector and the U.S. government as well as forward-thinking telcos such as BellSouth, Orange, and France Telecom). Google Talk is only the first step -- it's how we all build out the open network that matters most. Let's get to work.
Posted on 2005-08-24 at 22:17. File under jabber.
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2005-08-23
XMPP DNS TXT
Pre-discovery of XMPP connection methods.
Yesterday, Joe Hildebrand and I had a chat about using DNS TXT resource records to "pre-discover" the connection methods supported by an XMPP server (DNS TXT records are also used in zero-configuration networking). Such connection methods might include standard TCP connections as defined in RFC 3920, HTTP binding as defined in JEP-0124, old-style HTTP polling as defined in JEP-0025, WAP, and who knows what all else. I'll write up a proposal about it soon.
Posted on 2005-08-23 at 11:33. File under jabber.
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Assurance #14
CAcerting along.
This morning I met with Carl Malamud in Denver (he's driving across the country to a new gig in DC as CTO of the Center for American Progress). He and I had a fascinating discussion with Joe Hildebrand about some projects Carl has cooking -- it's too early to say what they are, but I guarantee they are going to make waves! While we were at it, I assured Carl with CAcert. Perhaps he can spread the web of trust in the nation's capital. :-)
Posted on 2005-08-23 at 11:21. File under technology.
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2005-08-22
Assurance #13
Yet another CAcert assurance.
Earlier today I vouched for Andrew Diederich's identity with the web of trust at CAcert. It's still a goal of mine to recruit enough assurers in LoDo so that you can stop by a local landmark like The Tattered Cover or The Wynkoop and we can provide one-stop shopping for all your assurance needs. :-) Both dizzyd and pgmillard should have enough points to be assurers now -- anyone else interested?
Posted on 2005-08-22 at 17:07. File under technology.
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2005-08-21
Ism Book Redux
More progress.
I just completed my first pass through a total revision of The Ism Book, the dictionary of philosophy I first wrote in 1990. I still need to fix up the XSLT transformations a bit and read the entire work again for accuracy and consistency, but it seems that I'll probably be posting version 4.0 in the very near future.
Posted on 2005-08-21 at 16:31. File under philosophy.
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2005-08-19
Splogging Along
Spim, spam, spit, splogs.
In the beginning there was spam. Then there was spim: spam over IM. Then there was spit: spam over Internet telephony. As Doc notes, now there are splogs: spam blogs. Mark Cuban observes:
We are exploring a variety of options. The blog hosts can obviously help, but I think the best solution will come from the pinging process that is used to let blog search engines know a new post has been added. If blogging is supposed to be a personal medium, I dont know why we can't use an email confirmation for blog posts. We do it for comments to keep out comment spam. Why not do it for blog posts?
Seems like we need a strong concept of identity here, eh? The blog hosts, for instance, could verify a person's identity using a system like Passel before allowing them to create a blog. As to blog pings, if folks used the Atom-over-XMPP protocol then aggregators would have a verified identity for the poster; alternatively, aggregators could require that the poster push the update to an HTTP URL that requires sign-in using Passel. Granted, we could do all this using PKI if everyone had X.509 certificates or PGP keys, but that's unlikely to happen anytime soon -- it's more likely that the much-ballyhoed "identity layer" for the Internet will emerge first (heck, even the Mozilla folks are getting into the act).
Posted on 2005-08-19 at 20:17. File under identity.
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2005-08-17
SOAP Redux
More on HTTP vs. XMPP at the transport layer.
Tim Ewald joins the discussion about the drawbacks of HTTP for web services:
I've thought for a long time that two interesting choices for alternate protocols with design tensions different from HTTP are SMTP and Jabber. We could use SMTP for disconnected message-queuing style communication and Jabber for connected, bidirectional async messaging. Both would offer indirect addressing. And both are open protocols with lots of implementations. Yes, there is overhead for using either one because you have to have set up a server for the protocol itself. On the other hand, we'd be using protocols that are actually designed for the kind of communication we envision Web services doing and it would stop the REST people from complaining.
Sounds like he might enjoy reading JEP-0072 (which should advance to Draft soon after the next Jabber Council is elected).
Posted on 2005-08-17 at 12:04. File under jabber.
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Atomic Standard
Gentlemen, update your feeds!
The IESG has approved The Atom Syndication Format as a Proposed Standard. It's time to go forth and implement! (And yes, I now consider RSS to be a legacy format.) Once the Atom spec is published with a shiny new RFC number, we'll finalize the Atom-over-XMPP spec.
Posted on 2005-08-17 at 11:59. File under technology.
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Six Years Later
MSN plays catch-up.
Rumors are flying that MSN may be adding support for offline messages -- only 6 years after we had that in Jabber. I'm so glad that Microsoft has the freedom to innovate!
Posted on 2005-08-17 at 11:49. File under jabber.
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2005-08-12
A Modern Trilogy
What I'm reading.
Several years ago I read The Blank Slate, last weekend I read The Language Instinct, now I'm reading How the Mind Works -- three blockbuster books by Steven Pinker. I'll try to report on them more fully soon.
Posted on 2005-08-12 at 20:21. File under personal.
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OSCON Photos
Some pictures from Portland.
Doc recently posted some photos from OSCON 2005, including one of me and Dizzy and one of me and Miguel.
Posted on 2005-08-12 at 20:06. File under technology.
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Atomic
New feeds.
Last night I finally got a chance to upgrade my weblog feeds from Atom 0.3 to Atom 1.0. Special thanks to the FEED Validator and its downloadable version (open source rocks). Next I need to update the jabber.org feeds.
Posted on 2005-08-12 at 19:47. File under technology.
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2005-08-08
Tag Redux
More on open tagging.
Following up on my recent post, I've been emailing with Bob Wyman about open tagging. Bob suggests that it would make sense for individuals or organizations in particular domains to maintain tagsets for tags in their domains. For instance, the JSF might create and maintain tags related to the various JEPs that we publish. Consider:
<a href="tag:jabber.org,2002-11-19:JEP-0060" rel="tag">publish-subscribe</a>
Here the domain is that of the maintaining organization, the date is that of the 0.1 version of the JEP, and the tagname is the official number of the specification in the JEP series.
But I wonder: what advantage does such a tag: URI have over the following http: URI?
<a href="http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0060.html" rel="tag">publish-subscribe</a>
Posted on 2005-08-08 at 12:51. File under technology.
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Where HTTP Fails SOAP
Overcoming the synchronous nature of HTTP.
WebServices Journal has published an interesting article entitled Where HTTP Fails SOAP. The authors mention MQSeries, JMS, and IIOP as possible solutions to the strictly synchronous nature of HTTP, but do not seem to be aware of the XMPP binding for SOAP that we've defined within the Jabber Software Foundation. We'll need to get the word out once that spec advances to Draft. (Hat tip: Steve Vinoski.)
Posted on 2005-08-08 at 11:41. File under jabber.
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2005-08-05
tag: You're It
URIs for open tagging.
Stowe Boyd outlines the problem with tagging blog posts by pointing to closed services such as Technorati, and outlines a solution he calls open tagging. Drummond Reed responds with an alternative solution using XRIs. I'm not yet convinced by Drummond's argument that XRIs are better than URNs for this purpose (though I probably need to do further research on XRIs), and I wonder why folks don't just use the existing tag: URI scheme instead. As Bob Wyman has noted, tag: URIs provide a mechanism for uniquely identifying an entity, which can be used to identify Atom entries but, perhaps, also specify the tags used in an entry. For instance, let's say that in this blog entry I use the tags "technology", "blogs", and "tagging"; thus I could uniquely identify the entry as "tag:saint-andre.com,2005-08-05:technology;blogs;tagging" and when I tag the term "tagging" I would do so with the following link:
<a href="tag:saint-andre.com,2005-08-05:tagging" rel="tag">tagging</a>
There are several potential drawbacks to this approach:
- Browsers don't support it. But they don't support XRIs, either.
- What if I want to use the identical combination of tags in multiple entries on the same day? The tag: spec doesn't resolve any times smaller than a yyyy-mm-dd.
However, it would enable tag crawlers to look for properly-constructed tag: URIs, scrape off the tags from the end of each URI (keeping track of the publishing domain or email address), and begin to create collections of commonly-used tags as well as of those who are doing the tagging.
Posted on 2005-08-05 at 17:21. File under technology.
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IRAs
Identity Rights Agreements.
While riding on the MAX from OSCON 2005 out to PDX with Doc Searls, Phil Windley, and Dizzy, we got to talking about something Diz and I chatted about the other night: the need for some well-defined policies (analogous to Creative Commons licenses) regarding how my identity information can be shared when I release it to a website or other Internet service. Just as the CC licenses specify that you can do anything with what I create (except, depending on the license, that you must share and share alike, attribute it to me, etc.), when I release identity information to a website I'd love to stipulate that it may not do anything with it (except, depending on the identity rights agreement, that it may share it with its subsidiaries or partners, or even post it on their website if I so agree, such as at a blog or Wiki). Developing the vocabulary and straightforward set of ~5 options for identity rights agreements will require collaboration among technologists, lawyers, and other interested parties. So let's get busy!
Update: Phil Windley has also posted about our discussion.
Posted on 2005-08-05 at 14:51. File under identity.
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2005-08-03
Jiving
Jive Software @ OSCON.
I stopped by the Jive Software booth and saw their Asterisk integration in person. Pretty cool stuff. Plus they will give $5 to the JSF, ASF, or EFF if you give them a business card. Thanks, Jive!
Posted on 2005-08-03 at 17:46. File under jabber.
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Passelating in Portland
Identity. Remixed.
Dizzy gave his talk on Passel this morning at OSCON and did a fine job. I'd say there were about 30 people there, the room was nearly full, questions were good, discussion was productive. Unfortunately Diz ran out of time and didn't get a chance to demo Passel for the assembled throng. But we did have some good follow-on discussions after his talk.
Posted on 2005-08-03 at 17:37. File under identity.
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2005-08-02
The Great Encryption Debate
e2e for XMPP.
Today I launched The Great Encryption Debate on the JSF's Standards-JIG discussion list and also published a revised version of the Encrypted Sessions proposal, which Ian Paterson and I have been working on for the last few weeks. It should be a fun discussion (for some definition of fun ;-).
Posted on 2005-08-02 at 18:15. File under jabber.
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One Ring?
Going on about identity.
Wired speculates about the prospects for "one login to bind them all" as a result of a product announcement about the GoingOn Network. Well. I rather doubt that any one company is going to provide the "one ring" in the identity space. Better to trust in open protocols like Passel, create a truly decentralized network that puts the individual in control (no intermediaries unless you want them), and otherwise adhere to the laws of identity.
(Oh, and by the way, with this post I inaugurate a new category for identity.)
Posted on 2005-08-02 at 16:51. File under identity.
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Federation
The power of Jabber.
Federation. What a concept.
Posted on 2005-08-02 at 16:28. File under jabber.
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IP4IT
Las Vegas bound (eventually).
Speaking of conferences, it seems that I'm going to be on a panel discussion about grown-up community collaboration with my old e-pal Jimbo Wales at IP4IT this November in Las Vegas (as well as another panel about SPAM, SPIM, and friends). I've always sworn I'd never visit Las Vegas since I have zippo interest in gambling, but I suppose meeting up with Jimbo again is reason enough. :-)
Posted on 2005-08-02 at 16:27. File under technology.
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OSCON 2005
Portland bound.
I'll be hopping on a plane to Portland, Oregon in a few hours to attend the O'Reilly Open-Source Convention (a.k.a. OSCON). If all goes well I'll be running BOFs on Jabber and CAcert (though they aren't listed on the BOF page yet), participating in Dizzy's session on Passel, chatting with folks from the Mozilla project, and so on. If you're going to be there, look me up (I'm easy to spot) and I'll assure your CAcert credentials.
Posted on 2005-08-02 at 14:33. File under technology.
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