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IBM

Jabber Makes It Good 89

Posted by Hemos from the rolling-the-open dept.
el bastardo writes "According to this ZDNet article, IBM is building a new IM network for the Washington, DC area government agencies using Jabber as the base protocol."
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Jabber Makes It Good More

Jabber Makes It Good

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  • Good idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 )
    This is a good idea. It seems to be like a huge cell phone network that won't have line overload problems during emergencies.

    Finally, an open source project used for good.

  • Jabber is an offense against christians! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 24, 2002 @06:14AM (#4132637)
    The name "jabber" comes from the Japanese phrase, "jabu jabu" which means, "splashing water sound" and is commonly used during the amoral act of sexual copulation (for purposes other than procreation which is a necessary and unfortunate evil to carry on our species). Basically a male would say, "kuwaete! osouji! jabu jabu" to a Japanese female after spilling his seed all over the unfortunate girl's face, instructing her to "take it in her mouth", give it the "honourable cleaning", and "make splashing sounds".

    The developers of the Jabber messaging tool obviously have taken basic Japanese 101, and decided to sneak this offensive term right past the noses of honest, hardworking, god fearing Christian Americans.

    If you use this tool, you are engaging in an act of blasphemy. Please support a boycott of IBM until the Jabber product is renamed or taken off the market.

    Thank you for your support, and God Bless.
    • Did you burn your dictionary because you thought it was satanic? Or did you merely eat it?

      If not, I would suggegest that you blow the dust off of it and realize the word jabber comes from the Middle English word jaberen meaning imitative (?).

      There are reasons why I try not to tell people I'm a Christian. I think it has to do with association with witch and book burners.

      Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself
      -- read !!!!
    • If god didn't want us to have sex, he wouldn't have made it so nice.

      Even if you're right, although I personally think that the word comes from some ancient English. Even if you're right, using a tool with a bad name would not be considered blasphemy. There is still the differnce between the tool and the name.

      One could of course argue that you cannot use freebsd or apple computers because of the logos. If you do that you will miss out a lot (and everyone knows that despite of the propper logo, M$ is the evil).

      Considering jabber a devil tool, tells probably more about the user's use of the tool than it tells about the tool.
    • FYI:

      Jabber Jab"ber, v. i. imp. & p. p. Jabbered; p. pr. & vb.
      n. Jabbering. Cf. Gibber, Gabble.
      To talk rapidly, indistinctly, or unintelligibly; to utter
      gibberish or nonsense; to chatter. --Swift.

    • That was funny! Was I the only one to get the joke?

      (jeez, maybe that should scare me... )

  • Jabber on Cell-phones? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anonymous cupboard ( 446159 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @06:18AM (#4132639)
    How would they do that? PDAs I can understand, especially if they run Linux, but cellphones? Or is this just some kind of SMSJabber Gateway. If memory servers me right. Jabber is easy to plug into other systems with server Gateways.

    Also, note the cost, $20m is peanuts for a Govt project. I guess they will try to use existing infrastructure where possible.

    • Although I couldn't find the older SMS transport, there seems to be another one being made here at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jabbersms

      Jabber gateways(transports) work very well. And if it doesn't exist you can write your own in Perl, Python, C , Java and many others using existing libraries to handle network and xml functions. $20 million buys you a hell of a lot of Jabbering!
    • Maybe IBM are going to make a Jabber enabled phone?
      • Thinking some more, some new mobiles phones have at least a bit of a Java VM in them (that is the telephone embedded variety). That would probably do it.

        I don't think that $20m would go far if there was dedicated hardware being developed. I gues the whole point is the use of IM to lever of exiting technology where possible. For example, the purchase of servers but the use of exitsing standard PCs as front ends.

    • Actually, France TeleCom and SwissCom both provide Jabber-enabled cell phones. It may be using an SMS gateway of some kind, but it doesn't have to. Jabber clients don't have to be using linux...
      • Is this via I-mode or something? Jabber normally needs an always on IP connection.

        You are right that Jabber doesn't need Linux, but it needs a programmable cellphone, usually Java (phone embbedded edition). Is this running under the Java VM or what?

    • One thing to take into consideration is that just because the server in question is Jabber, does not mean that all of the users need to be running jabber clients.

      If the Central Dispatchers are using Jabber clients, and have accounts on the various consumer accounts such as YM, MSN-IM, AIM, etc, and the phone that an officer is carrying has a client for one of these (my own cell phone is capable of either msn or Yahoo Messenger) the officer can be in communication with the Central Dispatchers, who can relay messages to other systems if needed.

      This does require the use of transports that may not always work, (Yahoo and AOL are both having fun trying to kick cross platform users off their networks.)

      Web enabled phones could also use ICQ, or other potential clients, including web enabled IRC gateways.

      Jabberd also runs on a variety of OS platforms as well, including NT, Solaris, BSD, as well as Linux. I would be surprised if no-one has taken te BSD source and confirmed that it will run under MacOS X as well. So just abou any platforms that are coming out of service, or are not being fully utilized can have a jabberd server running, interoperating with other jabberd servers.

      Of course other people have different ideas and opinions. We can't all be me.

      -Rusty

  • Jabber Server (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pajor ( 310214 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @06:47AM (#4132673) Homepage
    Its good to see an open standard promoted by the government. I'm half suprised MS didn't push for an MSN contract to help push their .NET intiative.

    I'm also glad IBM is smart enough to roll out their own servers rather than use that godawful jabberd that jabber.org provides. I hope they release their jabber server as free software, as the lack of a fs/os production quality jabber server has hurt deployment.

    • Re:Jabber Server (Score:4, Informative)

      by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:13AM (#4132800)
      I'm half suprised MS didn't push for an MSN contract to help push their .NET intiative.

      They would have difficulty with that. MSN was designed to be a large scale consumer service and nothing else. Check out its architecture if you don't believe me. It's not at all extendable, and the whole thing relies on central servers - you couldn't even just sell a server-in-a-box.

      I'm also glad IBM is smart enough to roll out their own servers rather than use that godawful jabberd that jabber.org provides. I hope they release their jabber server as free software, as the lack of a fs/os production quality jabber server has hurt deployment.

      I don't really know what you're referring to here. I admin a popular jabber server, and it works great. If you need corporate level scalability, the Jabber Commercial Server is especially designed for you.

      • I'd love to know where to get a hold of a copy of the IRC transport or even a version of aim-t or yahoo-t which works with jabberd-1.4.2. The sf-like site for jabber apps is as dead as a doornail as far as offering files or getting at CVS. :-(

        • Re:Jabber Server (Score:3, Informative)

          by Mansing ( 42708 )
          http://msn-transport.jabberstudio.org
          http://aim- transport.jabberstudio.org
          http://yahoo-transport -2.jabberstudio.org

        • Jabberstudio (Score:2, Informative)

          by 21mhz ( 443080 )
          The sf-like site for jabber apps is as dead as a doornail as far as offering files or getting at CVS.

          Jabberstudio [jabberstudio.org] is far from it. Subscribe to their CVS commits notification list and see for yourself.
    • I'm also glad IBM is smart enough to roll out their own servers rather than use that godawful jabberd that jabber.org provides.

      Yeah, but I'd be glad to see you helping to make the jabberd server less godawful, as some people I know doing it right now. They certainly need your invaluable expertise and will to perfection.

  • Makes Sense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by radoni ( 267396 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:02AM (#4132690)
    The ability to log messages is really keen. Accountability is important in a business setting; I witness Jabber developers' use of conference logs almost daily. The adoption of jabber in a messaging infrastructure by government makes sense.

    tired as i write this.

  • Location based (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by smallfries ( 601545 )
    This sounds like quite a cool application, linking together the IM networks doesn't really give them more than a radio, but pluging it into their databases could be interesting. Especially if the edge devices know whereabouts they are; message for backup to the closest 10 units, run stolen car checks automatically (hook up a front end that pulls plates out of a video feed), or even, when you spot one message a uniform car in the direction that the cars going. It would be quite cool for managing evacuations as well, real time stats about people getting out could organise escape routes to avoid congestion amongst other things..

    So when can I get a scanner for the car that checks there aren't any speed checks coming up...

  • More at the CapWin Site (Score:4, Informative)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @07:51AM (#4132763)
    There's more on the CapWin Site. [capwinproject.com]

  • Since they link to jabber.com in the story - will they be using their technology?

    I'm on that impressed by the jabber.com clients though. JIM (their client) hasn't been updated for "ages" it seems and it's not because it's bug free...
    They have a webclient too...which only works with IE5-IE6 and Netscape 4.x! I'm NOT impressed!

  • Probably sick of AIM ads. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Big Sean O ( 317186 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @08:59AM (#4132889)
    The government is probably sick of having to use AIM (or MSN, or Yahoo) like everyone else.

    But seriously, the DOD is fond of using SGML to process documents, and there's even a govt. website [xml.gov] pressing for the adoption of XML standards as a way to facilitate communication between agencies. This would be a good thing.

    Jabber clients, as an XML transport mechanism, would definitely facilitate this... For instance, right now the US EPA provides a database program called CAMEO [epa.gov] which provides emergency response data for over 6080 different hazardous chemicals. Imagine, not a beowulf cluster, but a US EPA On-scene coordinator who wants data on "Methyl-ethyl-meatloaf", a chemical not included in the program. "Beep beep beep", she sends a query (containing the CAS Number for the chemical) via the Jabber IM client. Then about ten seconds later, she receives a response data information sheet on the chemical from the National Response Center. Her specially-designed US EPA Jabber Client takes the data and (a) loads it into her CAMEO program and/or (b) processes it with XSLT and dumps it into her browser for printing.

    I do chemical emergency planning for a living and I'm always seeking to improve the ability to deliver appropriate information on request. One method is "give 'em everything we have and let 'em find it". That leads to (a) a file cabinet full of files on each fire truck or (b) a cd wallet and a computer guru on each shift.

    An other alternative is fax them what they need on request (ugh!). A Jabber IM solution would be a powerful way to deliver structured content to the responder on request.

  • I'm really surprised IBM didn't push that gawd awful Sametime garbage.

  • IBM isn't new to Jabber (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
    Check http://sash.alphaworks.ibm.com/download/sashjab/

    Don't be tricked by it needs IE, it needs MS XML stuff. The Sash thing is in its full a real interesting stuff... I remember I installed Sashjab, with all those cool tricks just made with WEB technologies, thing used LESS than ICQ of that time...

    So, IBM isn't new for Jabber.

    BTW, in this evil corparate games Internet, I know its a dream but, how a cool thing if all IM relied on a protocol like Jabber...

  • Not sure about this (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 5lash ( 589953 )
    Personally, i think this sets a bit of a bad precedent for the future of the world. I'm worried that one day the only thing we'll use for communication is IM/Txt msgs. This is bad because Text has a number of disadvantages over speech:

    1) It's near impossible to convey emotions in txt. The popularity of the internet has meant people use emoticons more and more, but even these cannot compare to a single facial expression.

    2)Not many people can type as fast as they can talk. This doesnt really matter to us now, but speed is important for the Fire Service or any other Life Saving Service.

    I think thats pretty much the way i feel, tell me if i'm wrong!

  • SameTime anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SGHarms ( 167872 )
    I wonder how IBM's push of this is going to affect their sametime Intsant Messenger for Lotus Notes.

    I won't argue that Jabber clients, by virtue of being OSS and infinitely customizable, offer a greater feature set than the SameTime client (the java version of which barely runs on *IX).

    My question is, is this IBM conceding that SameTime sucks (likely) and that they are looking for their Open Source embracing design theory to force the demise of SameTime as an IM client?

    (That said, I think that ST may be the best enterprise collaboration untility still -- a thouand VNC streams just don't cut it -- unless someone knows something better?).

  • Jabber!? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @11:25AM (#4133293) Homepage Journal
    But I have to use fucking Sametime Connect inside the company! The bastards! Having to use Lotus software is the biggest downside to working at IBM. They have to justify that 6 billion dollar investment in Lotus, you see? And despite the fact that IBM is all gung-ho about Linux, we'll never see Linux ports of that software. I suspect it's not that they don't want to as much as no one really knows enough about the code base to even make the attempt. Or to be able to document their file formats. Lotus is this decade's Token Ring.
    • Domino runs on Linux, and runs well.

      I can't say if there are Linux clients of Notes though, but the server not only exists, but excels.

      -9mm-

    • Look around (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is internal software at IBM to connect jabber to sametime. You just have to find it.
    • Cisco uses that crap too. I guess it works but it lacks the polish that *every* other IM client provides. For example, no smiley faces, when I disconnect from the network I get two alert boxes that I have to click "Ok" on, it doesn't seem to start minimized in my windows tray, etc. I don't know why Cisco bought it.
    • Uh, let's keep certain comments within the family, OK? You have a problem with it use internal channels to route it to the appropriate contact who can help with your issues. If you have never tried providing feedback, please do so, it'll alleviate your concerns.

  • Typical message exchange (Score:5, Funny)

    by jimbolaya ( 526861 ) on Saturday August 24, 2002 @11:28AM (#4133303) Homepage
    there's a riot downtown. :(
    stores are being looted! :O
    all units respond now! >:(
    officers have arrived. situation under control. :)
  • It's harder to get someone to switch their favourite IM than it is to get them to switch OS.

    At least with an OS we can build compatibility with their favourite applications/protocals, but getting them to switch protocals means that they lose all their friends.

    And for some absurd reason people continue using ICQ and MSN messenger in general rather than get a multi-protocal IM application. I don't understand this, it's so much easier having them all in one.

    I guess to get people to switch we'll have to wait for AOL and MSN to start new 'services' and 'features' that continue to irritate their 'customers' until the point where they look for alternatives - just like MS is doing with it's license fees at the moment.

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