Heiner Wolf Application 2023

I am Heiner Wolf. I am applying for XSF membership. I have been JSF/XSF member before (with interruptions) since about 2000.

Contact

 * JID: wolfspelz@jabber.de
 * Email: wolf.heiner@gmail.com

History

 * I was CTO of weblin, a virtual presence system based on XMPP with 3 Mio. users.
 * I am now working on a successor to weblin: weblin.io, which implements 3D avatars on Web pages using the XMPP protocol.
 * I have been writing code for many years. I write mostly Typescript/C#/C++/PHP and I will continue to do so.
 * I was engaged in virtual presence projects (meaning presence on web pages) of the European Union during my PhD.

Code

 * I am developing weblin.io, a browser extension for avatars on web pages based on XMPP.
 * I am developing the web services for the avatar system.
 * I once made a showcase how simple it is to "make a Web page chat in 1 hour" with XMPP, strophe, ejabberd (Website chat made easy).
 * I used to have a Twitter to Jabber gateway: TwiX (Twitter-to-XMPP. Unfortunately gone due to Twitter's client policy.

XMPP Protocol

 * I have been authoring XEP-0151. Though XEP-0151 has been put to sleep I am heavily developing and advancing this protocol extension, waiting for real world experience and adoption before the next XEP version.
 * In the meantime the virtual presence extensions to the XMPP protocol are documented at www.virtual-presence.org

Web sites

 * weblin.io where you will get the browser extension.


 * Virtual-Presence.org an aggregator of virtual presence systems and news.


 * Lupus Labs my company providing professional services around avatars on web pages, all XMPP based.


 * lms.virtual-presence.org/api/ a web front end for the URL mapping library.


 * blog.wolfspelz.de my blog (partially German).

Why I'm applying
I have been working on XMPP based chat systems for many years, because I think XMPP is the best infrastructure for the task. I am sure that we will see millions of people on the web with their avatars. As a project and a company we rely heavily on XMPP client libraries, servers, documentation, and know-how. We are using off the shelf open source XMPP servers. In other words: XMPP is very important for my hobby and for my professional work.

weblin.io
Avatars on web pages. That's my thing.

We started weblin.io to enable people to meet others without going outside during the lockdown. But of course, once you see the people who happen to be on the same page at the same time, you can do much more. Like in the real world. Avatars can walk so they can approach each other, chat (of course), video conference, ask the salesperson, watch streaming together, have ad-hoc meetings and do flash mobs and rallies together with like minded people. And then there is the "things"-layer: virtual items on the page and in your inventory, exchange of virtual goods, business cards, miningm crafting, gaming, adventure...

What's more: since XMPP is a distrbuted service where everyone can run his/her own server and since avatars provide a goood GUI for users exchanging virtual things when they meet, our avatars-on-wep-pages theme mixes well with the web3/crypto/NFT world. weblin.io will allow people to exchange NFTs by drag-n-drop. Besides, the avatars-on-wep-pages idea gives additional utility to image-NFTs because you can use your NFT as avatar and show off what you have in this space. The Web is a huge chunck of the Metaverse, actually the largest already existing section of the Metaverse.

All this on XMPP.

That's want I do.