Stephan Maka Application 2009


 * JID:
 * [xmpp:astro@spaceboyz.net astro@spaceboyz.net]


 * E-Mail:
 * [mailto:stephan@spaceboyz.net stephan@spaceboyz.net]


 * Previous applications:
 * 2006, 2007, 2008

Activities
I am currently intern an Process-One, taking part in improving the world's most famous XMPP server implementation. The Ruby library XMPP4R is still maintained by me, but my focus shifted to Erlang for scalable XMPP services. There has been some activity about handling XMPP connections in Ruby asynchronously and I am following these efforts. Hopefully we're going to have a scalable XMPP framework with Ruby's ease of use (think of Rails) later this year.

In my spare time I gave hints to Julien Genestoux of notifixio.us fame about XMPP standards: they now have an XMPP PubSub API.

In my previous applications I said that I wanted to get more involved in standards discussions. I did that for a tiny bit in 2008 concerning issues I found important (unbound namespace prefixes) and asking stupid questions.

I am a strong supporter of XMPP.

Ideas
I still have a lot of ideas what could be done with XMPP. I made a PEP aggregator last year and am currently expecting the release of exmpp, the superior Erlang XMPP library. Jabber Disk is a very nice service by Vojt?ch Vobr, based on some bits of XMPP4R by me, but I would love to reimplement it in Erlang.

I am using identi.ca, but am generally dissatisfied with the current Microblogging services. I've put communication-engaging information in my status message even before Twitter came up and do now wonder, why is everybody using a communication form that is limited to a single provider (no federation) and provides no nice push-interfaces. I cannot accept this on the internet. This is exactly where XMPP's power lies.

identichat.prosody.im is a pretty interface leveraged by XMPP MUC, but still too user-focused. I hope for a blooming landscape of PubSub clients, tools and providers.