Alexey Melnikov Application 2011

My name is Alexey Melnikov and I'm re-applying for my XSF membership.

Feel free to contact me via email or jabber. Both are alexey (full stop) melnikov (the weird sign that delimits left hand side from the right hand side) isode (full stop again) com.

History
I am in my early thirties. I live in Greater London area in UK.

I have a master degree with honours in applied mathematics and computer science from Moscow State University (VMiK faculty). My diploma was about writing an extensible SMTP server which supported SMTP Checkpoint Restart extension (RFC 1845) and SMTP AUTH extension.

I am currently working for Isode Limited.

Code (present and future)

 * I am one of the maintainers of the CMU SASL library, which is used for SASL support in various open-source XMPP clients and servers. I am spending too much time fixing auxprop API and writing GSS-API (Kerberos V5) and SCRAM SASL plugins lately.


 * I am currently reviewing and contributing some code to the Isode's XMPP server called M-Link. My work is mostly related to use of Cyrus SASL, TLS, configuration library, command line management tools and integration with LDAP.


 * Another project of mine is going to be about sending XMPP notifications from Sieve upon new mail arrival (based on RFC 5437).

XMPP related documents, reviews

 * RFC 5437 (mostly done by Peter Saint-Andre).


 * I got acknowledged for my comments on XEP-0233 (Use of Domain-Based Service Names in XMPP SASL Negotiation) and for my review of XEP-0136 (Message Archiving).


 * I've commented on XEP-0257 (Client Certificate Management for SASL EXTERNAL) and presented it during XMPP IETF Working Group meeting in San Francisco.


 * I am one of the co-editors of the SCRAM SASL authentication mechanism.


 * I've reviewed updated XMPP documents for IESG in December 2010/January 2011. I think I caused Peter some headache, but he doesn't seem to hate me.


 * I was the sponsoring IETF Area Director (see below) for TLS server identity verification document. But Peter is doing the hard work here. (Do you see a pattern now?)


 * I co-edited the IETF HYBI WebSocket document which can be used as a base for BOSH replacement.

Standardization
I am quite active in IETF and have 38 RFCs published.

I am also active in/co-chair the Kitten Working Group, which works on various SASL mechanisms, some of them can be used for federated authentication.

Jabber - Why I like it
I used to use ICQ back in University. IM helped me to connect to friends and family while I was away.

Since then I've started using Jabber for virtual attendance of IETF conferences.

These days I am very keen on open protocols, so I refused to use AOL AIM, Yahoo! IM and other non standard IM protocols. Besides XMPP is relatively cleanly designed.

One can say that I am addicted to XMPP. I get very annoyed when I can't talk to somebody because the person is offline or S2S is down, or when the person I am chatting with is not responding INSTANTLY.

Why do I care?
In XSF I am hoping to contribute my IETF experience to make description of the core protocol and design of various extensions better. I am also hoping of bringing the best of XMPP back to IETF.

I also like discussions driven by actual client or server implementors, and I like energy surrounding new XMPP developments.

Plans for the future

 * Work on account management and Kerberos related XEPs.


 * Work on replacement for StringPrep (which is independent of Unicode version used) to be used by XMPP and SASL.