

Google reinstates federated Jabber/XMPP instant messaging - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/google-reinstates-federated-instant-messaging

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imaginator
This incident discredits the FSF's legitimate and usually very good flagging
of internet misdeeds.

The FSF started out by saying Google was blocking some federation between
domains [and the sky is falling down]. The implication being that because they
are big there must be some malicious intent. Google had mentioned the problem
on the XMPP operators lists and, their messaging team are a pleasure to work
with (we send a lot of buddycloud messages to Gtalk users over their XMPP
network). This FSF post created a shitstorm for no reason.

Of course we should aim for full federation. But let's look at Google's
position: When (I'm guessing here) 1% of your XMPP traffic is federated, it's
in Google's interest to look after their existing users and protect them from
a bunch of spam than to federate with smaller domains. It's a no brainier -
not an evil plan.

PS: It's called XMPP. Jabber is a trademark owned by Cisco.

~~~
yarrel
From the original article that you mischaracterise:

"According to a public mailing list thread, Google is doing this on purpose,
to handle a spam problem. We sympathize; we spend a disappointing amount of
energy combating similar problems on the services we provide for the free
software community. But the solution can't be something that breaks legitimate
communication channels, and especially not in a way that enhances Google's
disproportionate control of the network."

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jakerocheleau
I remember when Google used to have an in-browser GChat app connected directly
to XMPP through JavaScript or another frontend language. I still have my hopes
that they will release an open source framework to embed a similar IM chat
into a website layout.

For reference here's a screenshot I found in Google Images:
[http://developers.sugarcrm.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/...](http://developers.sugarcrm.com/wordpress/wp-
content/uploads/2009/01/google-talk.png)

~~~
jcbrand
I'm working on a Javascript XMPP webchat client built with Strophe.js and
backbone.js

Please check it out <http://conversejs.org>

You can connect directly to any public XMPP server and you can of course set
up one yourself if you want to maintain ownership of the data.

It's still early days but it's already quite useful and used in production
(integrated into an add-on for the Plone CMS).

~~~
Arelius
You should setup a test XMPP server, so we can try the client without having
to actually sign-up for an account.

~~~
jcbrand
Yeah, I'll definitely do that sometime!

Currently I just want to get the client as polished as possible.

Once that's done and the XMPP server is up, I'll make a post to ShowHN.

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kalleboo
I have to admit, I didn't expect them to fix this.

~~~
mh-
not that they have any obligation to do so, but: in the absence of some
commitment to this remaining available, I'd be hesitant to build reliance on
it.

~~~
NegativeK
This is how you should treat most things on the internet.

~~~
Evbn
Or in meatspace.

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DannyBee
This is a really bad title, since they were only ever blocking invites, not
messages.

