Who are you?

Joe Hildebrand (hildjj).  I'm the Chief Architect at Jabber, Inc.

Work history

I've done a lot of work in messaging systems for the department of defense.  That meant doing tagged text parsing before we had XML and cross-network queuing before we had off-the-shelf queue management systems.  I wrote several queue managers that provided real guaranteed delivery while trying to be both scalable and have low best-case latency.  Looking back, this seems a lot like a transacted Jabber system, particularly with regard to the architecture we used.

After that, I moved up the ranks at a medium-sized consulting company based here in Denver, ending up as Chief Architect.  Over that time we opened offices around the country, and I got to see a lot of different technologies, vertical markets, languages, databases, and what-not.  Because of this breadth of experience, I now often cross the technical/business barrier to help the two sides communicate.

About a year ago, I joined Jabber, Inc. full time after having done some consulting work for them.  I liked the team and the product, but most of all, I was drawn by the idea of Jabber.  At Jabber, Inc. I work to set the technical direction for our server and client products, help articulate that direction to customers, and work with the community to ensure that we both implement and promulgate the appropriate standards.  I also do quite a bit of prototyping of new features and work with our development team to ensure that our solutions are as elegant, scalable, and easy to extend as possible.

Areas of contribution to Jabber

• Jabber-Net: a set of open-source C# libraries to access Jabber from .Net.  I'm the leader of this project.  I'm able to separate my lack of enthusiasm for Microsoft from my admiration of the C# language.  It's great for 
• Exodus: your favorite windows client.  I work with Peter Millard to add features, wonder about the future, and generally cheer-lead.
• IETF: I was one of the presenters at the recent Birds of a Feather (BOF) session.  I've been working with our people (Jer, StPeter, Tony, etc.), our customers, and Marshall Rose to try to get the Jabber protocol into the IETF on a standards track.  The interesting part will come if the IETF decides to form a working group. 
• Jabber, Inc: in addition to the above, I'm the one who gets to agitate for Jabber, Inc. to implement appropriate JEPs.  Call me the "protocol weasel".
• Marbles: yet another Java library.  Did some of the initial prototyping with DizzyD, and complained until we actually did some work on it.  Hopefully we'll make a more formal announcement about this soon.
• JEPS:
  • 25 (HTTP Polling).  Yes, we're fixing the security problem.  An updated JEP will be out soon.
  • 30 (Disco). We need to get this nailed soon.  It's stacking up as a pre-req for too many other JEPs.
  • 33 (Headers). Working prototype implementation now.  Waiting on disco for next rev.
  • Small contributions to several others.

Current topics

Disco/Browse

We really need to get support for one of these into the next version of our product.  As such, this is a really high priority for me to figure out in the near term.  I want to make sure that the spec we generate here is generic enough, but also able to be implemented by doing traversal of a running system, rather than having the data stored statically in a config file.

X-Data

After working with pgm last night to add the initial support of this to exodus, I believe even more in the potential for jabber:x:data to change Jabber the same way that adding forms to HTML changed the web.  This is a big deal, and I'm pushing for this to be added to all of Jabber Inc.'s client and server products.

Headers

jabber:x:header has a chance to optimize our inter-domain packet traffic significantly.  It can also enable ad-hoc multi-party chats, provide a method of diagnosing problems, and align the planets.

File Transfer

I'm working on a grand unification JEP here.  It will reuse JEP-0020 for negotiation of transfer method, encoding, compression, etc.  In addition, it will specify a fall-back in-band file transfer approach.  Yes, I know that in-band is bad, but it's sometimes the only way that will work.  Coupled with a method for the programatic determination of a more optimal approach, in-line file transfer is a necessary evil.

HTTP transport

I'm also hoping to get to a standards-track HTTP polling JEP.  JEP-0025 needs to have a replacement that is built through consensus, secure, and as scalable as possible.

Pub/Sub

We need an answer here.  The meeting at the JabberConf in Munich was a good start, and I'd like us to all continue in that spirit of cooperation until we come up with something that works for most people.  One of the key features that Jabber, Inc. really needs, for example, is (optional) persistent storage of topic data.

IETF

It is incumbent upon us as the Jabber community to work with the IETF if they decide to form a working group to standardize the core parts of the Jabber protocol.  We will need to guide and mold that process to ensure that what we love about the Jabber protocol continues uninterrupted.  I still think that there will be a place for the JSF in such a world.  I don't believe that the IETF will necessarily need to standardize things like pub/sub, white-boarding, and the other protocols and semantics that travel over the basic protocol.  

 

If the IETF decides to act, there will be a time of upheaval for the JSF.  A time of questions, self-evaluation, and the formulation of a new, hybrid process for the management of the protocol.  On the positive side, it will be a time of excitement, increasing ubiquity, and the emergence from our lack of respect in certain quarters as "not a real standard."

Vision

• Coordinated together
• Extensible
• General-purpose
• Don't overlap
• Relevant

If we can develop this suite of protocols, the JSF can be deemed a success.

Campaign Promises

 Not being a politician, feel free to keep my feet to the fire on these:

• I will push for Jabber, Inc to implement approved JEP standards.
• I will agitate for Jabber, Inc to provide JEPs to describe our protocol activities.
• I will participate fully in any IETF activities.
• I will campaign for Jabber, Inc. to implement any approved IETF standard regarding the Jabber protocol as soon as possible.