Dave Cridland for Council 2015

Dave Cridland for Council 2015

I'm Dave Cridland, and this is my fifth application for Council. I've been involved with XMPP and the XSF since around 2006, and involved in Internet protocol standardization and implementation since the last millennium.

Experience

Standards

I've served on the Council before, and written a XEP or two. I've also worked in two different IETF directorates, and authored some RFCs (and even been a Working Group chair). I've also served on the XSF Board twice, once as Chair.

XEPs: XEP-0198 XEP-0237 XEP-0286 XEP-0288 XEP-0344 XEP-0345

RFCs: RFC 4731 RFC 5162 RFC 5267 RFC 5524 RFC 5550 RFC 5788 RFC 6075 RFC 7162

XMPP Code

I've been project lead on two different XMPP servers - including currently as Project lead for Openfire - and worked on the codebases of three. I've worked on XMPP client libraries and the clients themselves, and even designed a logo for one. (I would note, FTR, that my logo is lots better than the logo Apple made for the same name).

Books or Films

I've not written any books, nor made any films.

Other Expertise

I have significant expertise in authentication and authorization technologies. I have some knowledge of cryptography, but really only enough to support the authentication capabilities in TLS. I've a reasonable working knowledge of PKI and X.509, including both simple *and* strong.

I also have expertise in email, particularly low-bandwidth "last mile" email, I'm probably the world's foremost expert on ACAP, I know a surprising amount about FTP, and I have been known to talk about air crashes at some length.

As you may imagine, I'm quite the guy at parties.

Goals

First, let me refresh your memory on what I wrote here last year.

Last Year's Goals

I've been away from the technical side of the XSF for a while, and while I think the last Council is pretty damn good, I still think I can add something to Council. Besides, I have to admit, I really miss it; and being back in the XMPP world from a technical standpoint, I've every reason to devote the time into diving into every corner of the protocol again.

Key things I think the community should be pushing is in bringing the IoT suite into the protocol properly - I think it's in danger of becoming an island without the commonality with the rest of the protocol, which will benefit neither IoT nor XMPP.

Also, I'm keenly watching the work to bring us voice and video fully integrated into XMPP, and aligned with WebRTC - that'll give us the ability to build some truly exciting products, with solid security at their heart.

Finally, as use of XMPP in military and government steadily increases, it'll be important to maintain and improve reliability.

This Year's Goals

So having dived back into the tech side, my views have modified. While I don't disagree with anything I wrote above, I'm hopeful that the Jingle/WebRTC side of things is going in the right direction.

Where we actually need to spend a bit of effort is, rather surprisingly, back in IM - I think we've all the right ingredients, and certainly more than enough knowledge, to have a strong selection of clients on all platforms with really good UX - but there's some polish and odd parts missing. We must, I think, push hard to get specifications shipping. That's not to say we should be cutting corners, but the key thing is shipped, working, stable, products.

Day Job

I work for Surevine as the resident Protocol Droid, working on all manner of exciting things, often closely involving XMPP. Surevine support my XSF time, but - as ever - I participate as an individual - informed by, but not controlled by, my professional experience.

Contact Details

Hey, of course, I'd love to chat. That's why we're involved in a chat^Wsignalling^WIoT^Wbeer drinking protocol, right?

You can IM me on Dave Cridland, or email me at Dave Cridland. I'm usually about in the XSF chatroom as "dwd", too.