Sebastiaan Deckers Application 2008

This document is aimed to convince the XMPP community electorate to accept my request to re-join the XSF as a member.

Contact
XMPP: [xmpp:cbas@pandion.be cbas@pandion.be]

Email: [mailto:cbas@pandion.be cbas@pandion.be]

Blog: cbas.pandion.be

Background
Until 2006 I was a member of the Jabber Software Foundation, as the XSF was then called. My most meaningful involvement with XMPP has been the founding and development of the Pandion instant messaging client for Windows. In 2006 my personal and professional priorities changed. I put Pandion on hold and was no longer actively involved in the XMPP community. Recent opportunities to be involved with interesting XMPP products and services have brought me back to Pandion and the XMPP community.

Pandion
Website: www.pandion.be

Blog: blog.pandion.be

Description: Instant messaging client designed for ease of use and Windows platform.

Role: Founder, lead developer, community lead

Time: First release in 2001, latest official release in 2006. Currently Iâ€™m planning the open source release of Pandion due to popular demand from users and contributors.

Chat.pw
Website: start.pw

Description: Soon to be released instant messaging service.

Role: Team lead for client software

Time: Started in 2008, ongoing

XEP-0038 â€“ Emoticon Styles
Co-authored specification of emoticon packages and created the first implementation with Pandion.

Reason for Application
Pandionâ€™s significant user base has an impact on protocol design and uptake. As a member of the XSF I can provide better feedback and proposals for XMPP/XEP specifications. I can also apply my experience in other XMPP-related projects that I am involved with.

My XMPP Goals
The inherent strengths of XMPP are only just starting to be applied. Social networking users would benefit from more acceptance of PubSub. So would (micro-)bloggers and any one who uses RSS. This fundamental technology is not being supported enough by most XMPP clients, which is something I hope to change.

Multimedia communications such as voice and video are another area I want to investigate further. There is plenty of protocol discussion taking place but not enough implementing. More support of Jingle through open source libraries for various platforms would be great in bringing XMPP forward.

What I Love About XMPP
The sheer extensibility provides so much power to developers as a framework for all kinds of applications. Already XMPP has grown beyond its instant messaging genesis into media signaling, social networking, content publishing, application middleware, and more.