Difference between revisions of "Annual Report 2009"
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= IETF Activities = | = IETF Activities = | ||
The XSF has spearheaded creation of a renewed [http://tools.ietf.org/wg/xmpp/ XMPP Working Group] at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The primary focus for the WG is to complete revisions to RFC 3920 and RFC 3921, which comprise the core definition of XMPP. | The XSF has spearheaded creation of a renewed [http://tools.ietf.org/wg/xmpp/ XMPP Working Group] at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). | ||
The primary focus for the WG is to complete revisions to RFC 3920 and RFC 3921, which comprise the core definition of XMPP. This work is very far along and will likely be complete in late 2009 or early 2010. | |||
A strong secondary focus for the WG is development of a secure, deployable technology for end-to-end encryption of XMPP traffic. A [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-saintandre-xmpp-e2e-requirements requirements document] has been published (borrowing heavily from [http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0210.html XEP-0210] and one proposed approach to solving the problem has been documented using an application-level profile of Transport Layer Security, called [http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-meyer-xmpp-e2e-encryption XTLS]. | |||
Revision as of 20:40, 21 September 2009
This is a "working page" for writing the 2009 annual report of the XSF (coinciding with the Board and Council terms for 2008-2009). The model for this page is http://xmpp.org/xsf/docs/annual-report-2007.shtml
Executive Summary
To follow...
XMPP Extension Protocols
The XMPP Council worked to complete several primary tasks in its eighth session (2008-2009). A full accounting of work on Draft and Final XEPs for this session is located at http://xmpp.org/council/tallies_08.shtml
Jingle
In June 2009 the Council was finally able to advance the core Jingle specifications from Experimental to Draft:
- XEP-0166: Jingle
- XEP-0167: Jingle RTP Sessions
- XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP Transport Method
- XEP-0177: Jingle Raw UDP Transport Method
This effort represents a major milestone in the use of XMPP for multimedia session negotiation as originally deployed in the Google Talk application.
Reliability
During recent instances of the twice-yearly XMPP Summit a significant topic of discussion has been improving the reliability of XMPP as a transport protocol (e.g., in mobile environments and distressed networks). The major result so far has been advancement from Experimental to Draft of XEP-0198: Stream Management (as well as advancement from Draft to Final of XEP-0199: XMPP Ping).
Draft to Final
The eighth Council made a concerted effort to advance more XEPs from Draft to Final in the XSF's standards process. The specifications so advanced were:
- XEP-0012: Last Activity
- XEP-0085: Chat State Notifications
- XEP-0174: Serverless Messaging (originally developed by Apple for their Bonjour technology)
- XEP-0138: Stream Compression
- XEP-0199: XMPP Ping
- XEP-0202: Entity Time
- XEP-0203: Delayed Delivery
It is probable that additional XEPs will be advanced from Draft to Final during the ninth Council session (2009-2010).
XEP Maintenance
As is evident from the vote tallies for the eighth Council session, maintenance of existing specifications now consumes quite a bit of attention. This is an inevitable result of the fact that the XMPP protocol stack continues to grow year after year. Some concern has been expressed that this large maintenance burden might be taking away resources from development of new XMPP extensions. It is unclear yet how this issue can be addressed.
IETF Activities
The XSF has spearheaded creation of a renewed XMPP Working Group at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
The primary focus for the WG is to complete revisions to RFC 3920 and RFC 3921, which comprise the core definition of XMPP. This work is very far along and will likely be complete in late 2009 or early 2010.
A strong secondary focus for the WG is development of a secure, deployable technology for end-to-end encryption of XMPP traffic. A requirements document has been published (borrowing heavily from XEP-0210 and one proposed approach to solving the problem has been documented using an application-level profile of Transport Layer Security, called XTLS.