Robert McQueen Application 2008

Updated version of my original application in 2006.

Background
I'm one of the directors (but mostly just another hacker and architect) of a software consultancy in the UK and Canada called Collabora Ltd. We are totally dedicated to free software, and our main business goal is to help our clients bridge the gap between their requirements and the needs of the community, so that they can both benefit from and participate in open source by building their products on top of software which has real use and support in the community. We specialise in real-time communications, including IM, VOIP, video and collaborative applications.

As well as a Telepathy developer (see below), I am now an upstream developer of freedesktop.org's D-Bus desktop IPC system, and a keen user of the GNOME desktop. In previous years, I started out my free software contributions as a Debian GNU/Linux developer, spent a few years as a Gaim hacker, and completed a Computer Science degree in 2005 at the University of Cambridge.

Telepathy
I am one of the main architects of the Telepathy framework to provide a fully-featured and extensible D-Bus abstraction for IM and VOIP systems so that users' accounts can be used from any application in the desktop (or device), and presence and messaging functionality integrated into the user experience regardless of the underlying protocol, language or even license. As well as the spec itself, Collabora supports and develops the Jabber/XMPP backend as our main focus, and other components necessary to support Google Talk and soon Jingle audio and video calls. Telepathy forms the basis of the Jabber/XMPP and Google Talk support on the Nokia 770 internet tablet.

Jingle
I have been working behind the scenes with stpeter and other involved parties (Nokia, Google, and Collabora ourselves) on the specifications for Jingle, gathering feedback and concensus on some open issues surrounding their implementation and use. I hope to shortly contribute some modifications and be added as a co-author of some new revisions of these specs.

Why I'm Applying
I'm keen to stay involved with the standards process for Jingle and other such things, and also try and put back some of the knowledge and experience gained as an implementor of the standards and JEPs which the Jabber protocol is based around. I'm very keen to put Jabber technology in the hands of as many people as possible, integrating it into their everyday computer usage, and give users the same rich experiences they've come to expect from other IM systems.

Contact
I can be reached via email or Jabber at robert.mcqueen@collabora.co.uk.