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It's a real shame, too, because XMPP had the potential to become the next HTTP or the next email. I've said for years that instant messaging is a terrible hell
by kethinov 12y ago
It's a real shame, too, because XMPP had the potential to become the next HTTP or the next email.
I've said for years that instant messaging is a terrible hellscape of competing protocols, mostly proprietary.
Imagine if when visiting a website you had to remember whether or not it's HTTP, XYYZ, or FKME before typing the URL.
Imagine if all email addresses couldn't communicate with each other.
That's what IM is like today, and it's a terrible, terrible shame.
Google was in a position to change all that when they adopted XMPP for Google Talk.
If they stuck with federating, maybe things would be different now.
- shmerl 12y ago> Google was in a position to change all that when they adopted XMPP for Google Talk. I'd add to that that if they considered XMPP inferior for whatever reason, they were in position to change it by opening up Hangouts like XMPP-next or whatever. They simply betrayed the whole effort.
- iopq 12y agoExactly, if they wanted to propose XMPP 2.0 like they did with HTTP, they could have done so.
- zanny 12y agoThey didn't want to fix IM, they wanted a captive audience using something that at the time required Google+. That sounds like a familiar trend for so many Google properties in the last few years...
- thisrod 12y ago> Imagine if when visiting a website you had to remember whether or not it's HTTP, XYYZ, or FKME before typing the URL. Old farts like me don't have to imagine it. In the mid 90s, gopher and nntp URLs were quite common. It wasn't a big deal. > Imagine if all email addresses couldn't communicate with each other. That used to be a massive problem, but Eric Allman solved it before my time.
- shmerl 12y ago> That used to be a massive problem, but Eric Allman solved it before my time. Is there some good historic overview of this issue for e-mail?