FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IETF Announces XMPP Working Group
Internet Standards Body to Adapt Jabber Protocol as an IETF IM and Presence Technology
DENVER, CO - November 6, 2002 -- The Jabber Software Foundation (JSF), the non-profit organization that manages the open Jabber protocol for XML-based instant messaging and presence, today acknowledged that the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) has announced the formation of an XMPP Working Group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). This Working Group will be dedicated to discussion and improvement of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) that is used throughout the Jabber community, with the intent of adapting XMPP as an IETF instant messaging and presence technology.
Because the Jabber community has always been focused on the importance of true interoperability in the domain of instant messaging and presence, prominent individuals within the community have been interested and involved in the IETF standards process for the last three years (see the history page for details). However, the formation of a dedicated working group provides an opportunity to receive feedback from the broader Internet community, and to ensure that the protocol used in the Jabber community adheres to IETF standards regarding security, internationalization, and the like.
As defined in the charter, the scope of the Working Group is to explore and, where necessary, modify the existing protocol in order to meet the requirements defined in RFC 2779 as well as the interoperability requirements defined in the CPIM specification. The main focus of the Working Group will be on XML streams (including stream-level security and authentication), the core data elements (<message/>, <presence/>, and <iq/>), and the namespaces required to achieve basic instant messaging and presence.
Parallel to the Working Group, the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF) will continue to use its Jabber Enhancement Proposal (JEP) Process (itself modelled on the IETF's standards process) to explore requirements not addressed in RFC 2779, such as multi-user chat, publish-subscribe systems, file transfer, whiteboarding, and calendaring. As such specifications are defined and adopted within the Jabber community, they too may be submitted to the IETF for consideration on top of the XMPP framework.
Members of the Jabber community and the broader Internet community are welcome to participate in the XMPP Working Group as well as the Jabber Interest Group devoted to discussion of Jabber Enhancement Proposals. Information about the relevant mailing lists maybe be found at the following URLs:
About the XMPP Standards Foundation
The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) builds open protocols for presence, instant messaging, and real-time communication and collaboration on top of the IETF's Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), and also provides information and infrastructure to the worldwide community of Jabber/XMPP developers, service providers, and end users. Widely considered the lingua franca of instant messaging, XMPP is an Internet standard for presence, real-time messaging, and streaming Extensible Markup Language (XML) data that grew out of the popular Jabber open-source technologies first released in 1999. With approval of XMPP by the IETF in 2004, the XSF continues to develop XMPP extensions that meet the needs of its many stakeholders: open-source and commercial developers (including Apple, HP, Nokia, and Sun), organizations large and small (including the U.S. defense establishment and most Wall Street investment banks), Internet and mobile service providers (including Google, NTT, Portugal Telecom, Twitter, and Facebook), and an estimated 50+ million end users worldwide.
For further information, visit <http://www.xmpp.org/> or contact XSF Executive Director Peter Saint-Andre.