Peter Saint-Andre from Jabber gave a very speedy (and I thought I talked fast) talk on Jabber and Jingle. Here's the basics, in case you aren't at O'Reilly eTel and haven't been riding the Jabber bandwagon:
Jabber is a "highly programmable presence and messaging framework, uniquely capable of bridging applications, networks, devices, multi-media, and protocols." More to the point, it's a BSD-licensed open source server that supports server-to-server communications within a decentralized network. The company went to the IETF and formalized its protocols as XMPP.
Saint-Andre doesn't know how many servers are running Jabber. The company's best guess is over 50,000. (Unfortunately, supporting a decentralized network is terrible for marketing.) The company's web site has a who's-who laundry list of large companies and agencies that have adopted Jabber.
Jabber vs. SIP (according to Jabber)
- Authentication is optional in SIP (where did this message really come from?)
- No spam or viruses on Jabber
- Jabber packers are smaller than SIP packets
Jabber seems to work pretty closely with Google. Jingle is Google's XMPP extension that enables Jabber clients to share media content. In addition, Jabber is working with Google on JEPs - once the protocols are set up for the standards process, they will be released. Hopefully, Jabber will maintain its connection to the community as it cultivates these big company relationships in an effort to drive standards.
Tags: christine herron spacejockeys space jockeys jabber technology google telephony o'reilly etel jingle
