

Is Google backing off from open standards? - shmerl

Some troubling developments:<p>* XMPP: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-expected-to-unify-chat-under-the-name-babble-20130318/<p>* CalDAV: http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html
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dragonwriter
Okay, lets consider those: XMPP: Undisclosed sources tell an internet news
site that Google is consolidating existing services, some of which are XMPP
based, into a new centralized service. News site asserts that Google's
shutting off of inboud XMPP subscription requests (which Google announced was
an emergency move to control spam, after asking other XMPP operators for
alternatives and still openly seeking alternatives that allow federation and
effectively control) is part of the plan for this new service to be a walled
garden that you can only use as Google wants. No mention is made of Google's
public explanations for the reasons for the shutdown of external access in the
article, which is either intentionally misleading or a sign that the author
just hasn't done their homework.

Aside from the troubling things it says about the quality of web-based
journalism, I don't see anything troubling (or even, particularly credible)
here.

CalDAV: Google has deprecated their _current_ (incomplete) always-labelled-as-
experimental CalDAV API for Google Calendar with 6 months of lead time before
deactivation, announced that the new version of the CalDAV API support will
initially, at least, be whitelist-only with an application process, and
announced that they've already reached agreements the operators that provide
98% of CalDAV traffic to Google Calendar for continued access.

So, continued -- probably even improved -- support for an open standard, but,
at least temporarily, less-open access to the API. Might be troubling from the
perspective of unrestricted API-based access to Google services, but doesn't
seem to be troubling from the perspective of Google's commitment to open
standards.

~~~
shmerl
Let's hope.

~~~
dragonwriter
Google's temporary XMPP limitation (which wasn't a complete deactivation of
external interaction) via whitelisting is expected, per Google's announcement,
to be replaced with a new antispam solution that allows federated interaction
without whitisting next week.

(see
[http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-March/001635...](http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-March/001635.html))

So, the idea that it limiting XMPP interaction was secretly part of a master
plan to move Google Talk into a walled garden with no off-Google's-system
interaction, which was wildly unsupported from the beginning, is looking less
credible.

~~~
shmerl
Thanks for the pointer. Cal(Card)DAV issue still looks weird though. Why does
Google need to make their own proprietary API instead of just using
Cal(Card)DAV?

------
orangethirty
Google was never open.

~~~
shmerl
Google was never completely open. But they were supportive of open standards
before. This is a serious trend reversal.

