RE: Let's fix THE PROBLEM

Rob Batchelder wrote:
> it is patently obvious that "presence" is a capability which
> should become part of the intrinsic operation of the Internet
> AND that instant messaging is but one of many messaging / 
>collaborative applications which can be enabled by presence.

	I believe that you only state half the problem here. I would
suggest that:

  It is patently obvious that *PubSub* is a capability 
  which should become part of the intrinsic operation 
  of the Internet and that "presence" is but one of many 
  messaging/collaborative applications which can be 
  implemented using PubSub.

	The fact that "presence" has been given so much attention as a
specific protocol, rather than as a use of a more general PubSub
protocol is, in my opinion, a clear indication of the continued
inability of the IETF community to carefully consider the architectural
implications of its work as various interest groups attempt to rush to
standardize specific, untested solutions. Since we've become engulfed by
the Jabber vs SIMPLE war, we've been focusing more on handicapping the
contestants than we have on doing solid, thoughtful protocol design...
	Personally, I believe that "presence" should be little more than
PDIF. All the rest should be independent of presence and should be part
of a general PubSub definition. There is nothing inherently "presence
specific" about such protocol elements as Subscribe, Notify, etc. In
fact, exactly the same pattern of elements exists in most PubSub
protocols. It is ridiculous that we're going to end up with machines
that implement *both* presence and PubSub.

> Presence deserves its own working group.  
> It should start with a clean sheet of paper, and 
> not be unduly influenced by the SIP and XMPP camps.
	PubSub is the thing that needs the working group (i.e. as first
proposed during the Notify-BOF many, many years ago). Presence should
simply be a specialized payload type defined to be passed over PubSub
connections. 
	Just as we have Jabber/XMPP and SIP fighting over Presence etc.
we're going to have the same thing for PubSub. Jabber has a PubSub JEP
in "final call" right now and the SIP folk have been defining similar
capabilities. The battle between these camps will continue and expand --
although I am confident that it won't be fought on technical merits --
rather, it will be fought with bluster, statements of market
penetration, force of personality, etc.

		bob wyman


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Rob Batchelder
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 10:09 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Let's fix THE PROBLEM


Dear IETF Contributors: 
To this point I have refrained from editorializing on the collective
activities of the IMPP / SIMPLE / XMPP working groups.  Admittedly, I
have not attended many of the IETF meetings - or actively contributed to
the working groups.  Nevertheless, I am extremely active in the IM
vendor community and do provide high level strategic counsel to the
leading firms in this field.  That being said, I feel confident that I
can articulate some of their concerns with IETF IM initiatives.
First of all, I would like to point out the obvious overlap in the three
groups charters.  As previous threads (and history) show there are a
plethora of reasons for this.  My goal is not to analyze how the IETF
got to where it is today - but to suggest where the IETF needs to go in
order to credibly meet the needs of IM vendors and enterprise users.
To those of us who are knowledgeable in this field - it is patently
obvious that "presence" is a capability which should become part of the
intrinsic operation of the Internet AND that instant messaging is but
one of many messaging / collaborative applications which can be enabled
by presence.
Regrettably, working group efforts to date have not separated presence
from IM within their scope and goals.  Although some would argue that IM
is so closely related to presence that such a division does not make
sense.  I and my peers disagree.  We suggest that presence so
fundamental, far-reaching in impact, and involved technology that it
deserves a working group of its own.  Concomitantly, IM (and other
presence-enabled applications) should then have their own separate,
clearly defined working groups - which leverage advances made on the
presence front. 
Today, to the contrary, presence is still tangled up with IM and
continues to be a political football - the "ownership" of which is being
contested by multiple working groups.  This is "THE PROBLEM."  
There are those who argue that Presence is a natural extension of SIP's
signaling capabilities - and thus SIP should be extended to define how
presence should operate.  There are those who counter that XMPP's
federated presence model is sufficient for building a global presence
infrastructure.  I submit there is some validity to both points of view.
The problem is that there are two (or more) points of view that have not
converged - and that each working group continues to bang away at BOTH
presence and IM issues in its own way.  And for the record - few in
industry give any credibility to (IETF) platitudes that these efforts
are collaborative and integrative.  
I submit that what is needed in the Internet is a Global Presence
Architecture (GPA) which builds upon and extends all that we have
learned from running DNS.  What needs to be recognized in developing a
GPA is that presence will act like a next generation "dial-tone" upon
which a wide variety of near "real-time" applications will be built.  As
such, this dial-tone should be such that companies can privately employ
it to serve their internal needs - as well as securely extend it between
enterprises.  The presumption is that such a capability must be run at
carrier-class (five-nines) reliability levels - and employ a universally
agreed-upon name-space and security infrastructure.  
Candidly, I and my peers in the industry believe that the IETF has
failed to grasp this reality.  Rather, the IETF seems bent on forging
ahead with well-intentioned but fundamentally misdirected efforts of
sincere, intelligent, hard-working volunteers.  Many of us view the
current state of affairs as a reflection of an IETF "face-saving"
exercise - because no one has the temerity to stand up and say that
defining and specifying how presence should manifest itself has been
fundamentally mis-understood, mis-scoped, and mis-managed. 
The time has come to confront this issue candidly - lest the industry
continue to be paralyzed by IETF managerial ineptitude.  Presence
deserves its own working group.  It should start with a clean sheet of
paper, and not be unduly influenced by the SIP and XMPP camps.  And to
the retort that key members of the IM industry should put aside their
partisan issues and contribute to such a process I say, "Get your act
together and they will!"


Yours truly, 


Rob Batchelder 
President - Relevance 




  [reminder: [email protected] for non-technical discussions, please]