RT Messaging Coming To MozillaTuesday September 7th, 1999Our third news item of the day is again about third-party Mozilla development. Jeremie Miller writes in with this announcement about Jabber, a universal, real-time messaging client: "Jabber.org is announcing an effort to create a universal real-time messaging client integrated with Mozilla. The Jabber team has been designing and developing an architecture for real-time messaging that is fully open, utilizes an XML based protocol, will support the IETF/IMPP developments, and can bridge transparently to 3rd party messaging services such as IRC, ICQ, and AIM. We are very excited to join the two open-source efforts and create an integrated Jabber client for Mozilla. The combination will significantly enhance the communication power and functionality available within the Mozilla browser and create a standard and powerful client for Jabber. The initial Mozilla-based client is in its early stages and will exist within the sidebar. We are working with the Mozilla team to contribute our development into the main Mozilla codebase and utilize the mozilla.org site for announcements, FAQs, and other documents. Over the next few weeks the Jabber client should be available in CVS and the real-time messaging area on mozilla.org updated. We are anticipating a working client and some test servers to be online by the end of September. If anyone is interested in learning more about Jabber, please visit http://jabber.org/. If you have any questions or would like to contribute to this, please feel free to contact the Jabber team at team@jabber.org." Awesome news. An IRC client and a RT-messaging client, both done third-party! Woohoo! It'd be great to see all these add-ons be available as part of the official Netscape Communicator 5.0 release but I believe they should ensure that it is optional. Would it be possible to add these features as plugins that could be downloaded and then they'd automatically be added to the Communicator tasks menu. This would also make it easier to upgrade individual components. BTW keep up the good work. Who say's there's no external developers for Mozilla?? Aweful idea. Very aweful. But your input do count I suppose.... ............................ .............................. ................nah. Please integrate as much as possible into Mozilla. It's this integration that makes it possible for web developers to feel safe trying a variety of technologies available today. Quick question-- As I understand it, Jabber is kind of a catch-all IM system which allows a single client to interface with IRC, AIM, PAL, ICQ, Yahoo Chat, etc... (or maybe it's that the jabber _servers_ do the actual interfacing...something like that) Anyway, my question is-- if jabber can "talk" to irc, is it redundant to also have an IRC-specific client (also announced today on MZ)? That is, unless the IRC client is some kind of standalone product..? W Don't get me wrong here, I really appreciate all the work people are putting into this project, but can we please just have a browser? Email and News is nice too, but if I want to do IM, I will start my IM client. If I want to do IRC, I will start my IRC client. <p> There is a similar comment in the comments about the IRC component. It's being done because people want to work on it. How many Mozilla engineers have been pulled off the Seamonkey project to work on this? None. How many hours have Ramiro, Mike, Jerry, Bruce, David, or Pavlov put into this? None. You will get your HTTP client and HTML renderer just as quickly as you would if none of this work had been done. So why are you complaining? Mozilla will have to succeed first with the Web's most experienced users if it is to succeed at all. And experienced users want a streamlined browser - wasn't that the promise of Mozilla in the first place? If these components are optional downloads that don't clutter up the UI unless you install them, fine. They should be integrated by the user, not by the developer. It's clear that users demand streamlined browsers. When Netscape shipped Communicator 4.0, the intention was only to ship the combined Navigator+Composer+Messenger (Dogbert) client . Only later, after user demand, was the Messenger-ectomy performed, and the Navigator (known internally as Ratbert) was release on its own. So, why was a browser-only solution needed? Possibly because the huge download size of the full communicator package (15,800kb) was huge, and people would rather download the smaller, leaner, ratbert package (10,200kb). Since that was 2 years ago, and modem speeds have gotten faster, and cable modems, and DSL are coming, download speed is not really a factor any more. I think you were misunderstanding the point of the 'streamlined browser' - it doesn't mean feature-starved. It means streamlined in terms of code. I think there's a market for a 'lean browser' - minimal footprint but there is a BIGGER market for a browser with as many plugins as possible included out of the box. I *hate* downloading and installing plugins - have you tried the latest Quicktime 4 thing. It's a mess. You want users to be able to use all the latest mime-types out of the box - there's some great fractal image compression stuff that I'd love to see more widely deployed, and Mozilla can help promote it. Remember that mozilla is not just a browser, - it's a great framework for building other applications - and this IRC/messaging stuff is a great example. Plus, you get to be x-platform practically for free. In the end, it'll be up to AOL to choose the components in its distribution, and who knows - depending on some $$$$ spent on martket research, it may develop two or more versions of the package. But if they only include the bare-bones browser, you can bet that someone, somewhere will come up with the all-signing all-dancing version. By adding features, you also increase the complexity of the product. From the viewpoint of a IT manager, if you don't take steps to manage that complexity - either through being able to turn off/disable features, or by creating plugins that act more like virtual features that are perhaps downloaded as needed/requested - you are making the product harder to manage. Also, as Microsoft continues to prove, the more features you provide, the more oportunities for security risks - we should be allowed to manage the level of risk we want to expose us (or our companies) to. I am not impressed with the security history of ICQ, and I don't want to bring that history to the new browser. I am not trying to stifle the creativity and enthusiasm of the development community, but please do not assume that everyone wants or needs every set of features. I for one would like to be able to disable any features other than browser (and maybe email). Well, since one of Mozilla's primary features include the ability to add/disable various chat and other plugin features anyway, what is the fuss about? Since possible features(?) like ICQ for example are most likely to be removable ones anyway, you wouldn't have to put it in your Mozilla browser to begin with. So, is your concern really about increased complexity in Mozilla or just angst over ICQ security? Just thoughts from one end-user's viewpoint. If AOL goes through all these hoops to prevent MS from talking to AIM, how do Mozilla people expect to be able to interop with AIM, ICQ and all the other messaging clients? Just wondering... Did AOL give them their blessing for this? I don't think it matters. Mozilla is an open-source community. There is nothing they can do. For the actual Netscape Communicator 5.0 distribution, I highly doubt that Jabber would be included. However, if a "plug-in" system was easily available, any user could add in Jabber. This may already be built into the foundation, I don't know. Of course, the standard Mozilla Seamonkey distro would probably include it standard. They have already been throwing in everything except the kitchen sink. --Eric Since Mozilla is based on the Netscape Communicator, which is now property of AOL, I would believe that AOL would find this a useful tool. And if jabber is as ahead of it's time as it seems, it is likely that AOL could (no guarantees, though) actually adopt it in it's own software. Modular capability is a very powerful force, as proven with Linux, GIMP, and other programs/projects. Well, considering the whole AOL-Netscape merger, and Netscape still having rights to the code, I don't think they'd try to stop their own products. Would they? I cannot believe there is an ad for MSN Instant Messenger here on Mozillazine now! Little bit of irony... --Eric I know y'all could probably care less about Microsoft or any of their products, but I've kept their ads displayed because, well, they make me money which I can use to pay people for new articles, etc. And you can help. I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but I don't mind leeching off of them, either. Anything I can do to decentralize the wealth a bit. As long as I can choose to install or not, I think it's a great idea. One program does everything. That's integration, Microsoft :) Personally, I hate these damned overrated, overhyped, things. I can't see the fuss, but it's a good opportunity for Mozilla to offer an integreated OPEN SOURCE internet suite. long live the lizard dan The best thing about Mozilla is YOU HAVE SOURCE. This means you can add messaging or compile it out. I am sure the ./configure --without-messaging would give you just a web browser. I think it great to have messaging included in Mozilla If the email program crashes, why should it take down the browser, irc, and IM too!?? There are ways of having different processes communicate through X... For example I might have mozilla email running on a Solaris machine and IRC running on an OpenBSD firewall - all should work together via X' communication methods. Please keep open access computer labs and libraries in mind. Make these clients optional and the e-mail client optional as well (I know not the best place to post that comment, but wth). Thanks for all you hard work on Mozilla. I look forward to the day when I can set up my own server and have my own open-source IM like jabber. It should be like an email server - as long as you have an IP address or a registered domain name, you could send an Instant Message to anybody (and I propose that it should be the same as the email address to simplify things instead of creating a new username and password). Just my .02. I think for it to be a sucess it needs to be backwards compatible with things like Talk, ICQ, IRC, etc. In fact, I think that they should look at further messaging systems, which makes each website a 'chatroom'. I realize that there are implications to this larger program, but personally, I hate downloading plugins. I wonder if they've looked at further messaging systems, I'm thinking of the one which makes each website a 'chatroom'. I always thought that it'd be great if I visited a website and was able to receive immediate support or direction for my newbie techie questions. I realize that there are implications to having a larger program, but personally, I hate downloading plugins. From what I've seen, this protocol does not impress me at all because I see absolutely no privacy/security considerations given in the design. IM systems are simple to design, but if you don't implement security from the get-go, then you are doomed to having a protocol as crappy as ICQ. The features we're still working on need to be in place before security. It's there, with full digital signature support, but we haven't required it as of yet, due to the HEAVY development nature.. This is a nice thing to hear as far as the open source effort is concerned and all, but I like separate apps for everything. I hate integrated email, integrated news clients, and certainly do not want IM or IRC integrated either. I want to be able to pick the best of each category, and also not have to download a 14Mb browser bloated with 6Mb or so of crap I never use. |