As a Mozillian who also cares very much about open standards, I agree. Google has both a long and recent track record of helping to advance open standards - CalDAV, WebRTC, WebM, etc. - and I have no doubt they will continue to do so - e.g., Physical Web.
However, Google's purpose in the world is not to advance open standards.
That is Mozilla's purpose. That's why this is a strategic, long-term decision on Mozilla's part. A world with a strong Google, strong Mozilla, and strong Yahoo (and Apple, and Microsoft, and Samsung, and Intel, etc.) is better for everyone.
A world where any one of those entities controls too much power is worse.
For me, I look forward to working with partners at Google and Yahoo.
Regrettably, you're quite mistaken in doing so. They're dropping CalDAV. Their IMAP implementation has been broken for close to a decade. But the very worst is their dropping XMPP is favour of Hangouts. This truly reflected Google's final intentions.
* Like how they were planning to require whitelisting for CalDAV access?
* Like how they completely bastardise the IMAP protocol?
* Like how they disabled XMPP federation and then dropped XMPP support completely, for their GTalk replacement?
This is a perfect example of how (some) open-standards advocates have impossible expectations.
Your complaints about IMAP and XMPP are completely opposite. When Hangouts stopped supporting XMPP (designed in 1998) due to product evolution, you complain that they dropped XMPP support. But when Gmail continued to support IMAP (designed in 1986) despite the product diverging somewhat from traditional email, you complain they are "bastardizing the IMAP protocol."
What course of action by Google would make you happy? The Internet can't stay in the year 2000. Major players move it forward -- Mozilla, Google, and others. I think Google has a pretty good track record of doing this as openly as they can.
Other than locking in users, Hangouts offers no feature that XMPP does not. Additionally, XMPP is extensible, so if they intend do add new features, they could just have extended XMPP.
How old a particular standard is doesn't really have that much bearing on whether or not it's a good standard (if it were, then it shouldn't be long before we all switch away from HTTP and SSH for the sake of "innovation"). Nor is age an excuse for introducing a replacement that's locked down to a specific vendor.
I'm fine with Google dropping their support for open standards - their services, their rules, and if they don't care about users like me who prefer the open standards, then it's not my place to whine about it when I can instead seek a competitor that does adhere to those standards. However, I'm not fine with such dropping of standards being masqueraded under some lame excuse like "the open standards are too old". 1998 and 1986 are young compared to the majority of the standards which form the backbone of the Internet and World Wide Web themselves. If you're going to try and rationalize Google's actions beyond them wanting to make money via control over their stack, then at least try and find some actual technical reason why XMPP and IMAP are insufficient for their purposes.
(I'll concede that IMAP isn't exactly pretty, but it sounds like XMPP at least could have simply been extended if there were features Google needed for Hangouts).
> if it were, then it shouldn't be long before we all switch away from HTTP and SSH for the sake of "innovation"
Not great examples. HTTP has evolved several times to address changing needs: HTTP 0.9 (1991), HTTP 1.0 (1996), HTTP 1.1 (1997), HTTP 1.1 again (2007) and HTTP 2.0 (targeted for 2014). So did SSH: SSH-1 (1995) SSH-2 (2006).
These evolutions were possible because there were multiple major players that could come together (with multiple implementations) to settle on the new standard.
> but it sounds like XMPP at least could have simply been extended if there were features Google needed for Hangouts
In an alternate future where Google did that, people would have cried "embrace, extend, extinguish." Especially if any of their extensions were anti-spam related, people would have criticized them for being exclusionary.
For example, look at all the flak Google has gotten for SPDY. Evolving XMPP would have probably led to the same criticism.
And XMPP still wouldn't have provided interop with any of the major IM networks, because none of them were implementing it.
You truly can't please everybody, even if you really believe in something.
Just like HTTP, XMPP has evolved, with earlier RFC's being superseded by more recent ones.
Extensibility is a built in part of the XMPP standard, and Google have already made several extensions related to Google Talk etc.
Using XMPP provides a much greater possibility of interoperability, as several other major "modern" IM networks use their own non-federated XMPP network. WhatsApp, Facebook Chat, etc. It's much more likely that two non-federated XMPP networks will become federated, than two binary incompatible networks both becoming binary compatible AND supporting federation.
Google's stated reason for abandoning XMPP is nothing to do with product evolution. They publicly stated that the reason for dropping support, was a lack of "industry adoption".
Personally I trust that about as much as I would trust a priest to give me a colonoscopy - open access means less control for Google, which means less ability to collect data and/or display ads.
Keeping XMPP support (and federation) would have allowed interoperability with a range of XMPP clients on desktop/mobile devices, AND with users of other XMPP services - whether they be services provided by third parties, or "private" services run by organisations/individuals. It would also have also been useful as leverage to encourage other "big" IM networks to open up their "private" XMPP based IM networks - Facebook Chat, WhatsApp, Cisco WebEx, etc. They're all using XMPP, but they're islands right now. At this point Google are worse than those islands, because not only are they not embracing open XMPP & federation, they're not even supporting XMPP any more - so if FB/WhatsApp said "hey we want to support XMPP federation from tomorrow" Google users have no possible way to be involved in that any more.
Google's implementation of IMAP is fundamentally broken. The big ticket item, "tags" is ridiculous, as IMAP already has a defined standard for "tags": the IMAP keywords feature.
The usual Google fanboy response to this is "but IMAP clients don't support keywords fully", which of course ignores the fact that standard IMAP clients also don't support the idea of messages appearing in multiple mailboxes (i.e. folders) either, but the network effect of Gmail has meant MANY clients have come to support Gmail specific features.
Imagine for a second, if instead of its current shit soup solution, Google had implemented the existing IMAP standard for keywords. It's not unreasonable to expect that the majority of IMAP clients would have been quick(er) to implement support for this part of the spec, which would mean users of other IMAP services (either hosted services or self-hosted mail servers) would also be able to use IMAP keywords.
It's been said before and I'll say it again: Google is following the same plays that Microsoft made over a decade ago. Latch onto an open standard, use your market position to make "additions" to said standard, and finally pull support for said standard, in favour of your own closed solution.
I'll wait for the regular Google fanboy down votes.
I downvoted you, and I feel obligated to explain my reason. Others will vote how they will.
I'm no Google fanboy. But please reply to the argument instead of calling names. Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.
Instead of calling gmail "shit soup," just talk about the existing IMAP standard for keywords.
I didn't complain about being down voted nor did I "invite others to down vote", I referenced a well-known phenomenon where opinions (and even statements of fact) that criticise Google are often down voted on HackerNews, simply because they are critical of Google.
The whole concept of "don't complain about being down voted" is itself quite ridiculous. Given how hacker news works (i.e. down voted comments are hidden) this effectively encourages people to simply "go with the crowd". I disagree with this entire concept. Differences of opinion, and yes even criticism, are what drive people to make things BETTER.
> But please reply to the argument
What, like identifying why I believe Google's actions are "bad", what I think they could/should have done that would be "good", and how those alternative actions would have been had a more positive outcome?
"I'll wait for the regular Google fanboy down votes" is baiting other users into downvoting you, and that is against the HN guidelines. Please stay on topic.
Also, phrases like "about as much as I would trust a priest to give me a colonoscopy" and "the usual Google fanboy response" are inflammatory and inappropriate for substantive discussion, which is what HN calls for. Please edit such flamebait out of your comments. It's understandable that it sneaks in there—we're all susceptible to it—but that's what the edit button is for. Not only will excising it not hurt your argument, it will help it considerably, and display good manners to your fellow users to boot.
If people down vote simply because I mentioned the concept of people down voting an opinion or fact simply because they disagree with it, then my point about the stupidity of the "don't mention being down voted" concept is proven true.
If people down-vote you, your words will have the connotation that they do it because that they are Google fanboys, rather than have a reasonable argument against your opinion. That is why such wording is not conductive to discussion.
The idea of down voting comments you disagree with is ridiculous anyway.
If you have a counter argument, reply.
Down voting a comment (which leads to it effectively disappearing) is the electronic equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "la la la I'm not listening" because you don't like what someone else said.
If someone posts a comment saying "I like chocolate ice cream" in a discussion about a new version of a piece of software, down vote to your hearts content.
When someone posts a comment that simply disagrees with your opinion, either ignore it or reply with a counter point.
Fair enough. Then I rephrase. Your words carry the connotation that any one who down-votes you is a Google fanboy, rather than have any valid reason permitted by the HN guidelines (whatever that may be). That is why such wording is not conductive to discussion.
And for the record, I don't have any opinion about this XMPP /Google thing. I don't even know what XMPP is, so I am perfectly neutral here.
However, Google's purpose in the world is not to advance open standards.
That is Mozilla's purpose. That's why this is a strategic, long-term decision on Mozilla's part. A world with a strong Google, strong Mozilla, and strong Yahoo (and Apple, and Microsoft, and Samsung, and Intel, etc.) is better for everyone.
A world where any one of those entities controls too much power is worse.
For me, I look forward to working with partners at Google and Yahoo.