[OWW-Discuss] Hello list! (I'm new)

[Bill F]

I don't know what others think but maybe we should just pause and evaluate
before jumping.

This is a good suggestion but we currently have no Internet support for any
protocols besides HTTP on our server. In other words, we run with a pretty
well locked-down firewall.

When we recently opened up a tiny hole to allow people to send feedback
messages, we were immediately beset with spam. Supporting a new protocol
like IRC would have to be a decision we'd make as a group and not on the
spur of the moment.

Our current chat is javascript and browser-based; it really consumes a lot
of resources. I agree that moving away from it is a good idea. But I think
we need to assess our needs a little more completely than this to make a
pretty major decision.

I'm also personally reluctant to embrace IRC when so many people seem to be
moving to more sophisticated chat servers and services. As a matter of fact,
I'd suspect that most of our users, not generally being of the computer
science variety, would favor something like Jabber, something that's
compatible with Google Talk, Apple iChat, and IBM's SameTime. It's also
supported by many other chat clients.

The Jabber and XMPP specs are the only real "standards" out there. I know
that IRC is pretty open but there's no major network that directly supports
it. XMPP and Jabber are  pretty much the same protocol at this point and
therefore the most likely to be with us in the future. There's  good deal of
work going on to merge voice, text, and video chat via XMPP. I'd love to be
convinced otherwise. Show us the data and the context of the data and we can
evaluate it.

I really like what Austin has done: he made the current chat service
simpler. I've also brought up the first real-time user list we've had. You
can see the first cut here:

http://openwetware.org/wiki/Sandbox1

More will follow.

I think it's great to get a fresh look at the system. As you can see, we
want to accommodate as many user styles as we can. But without data to
support our hunches, I recommend we take this step by step.

Since, as a rule, we try to set development tasks as a function of our
monthly Steering Committee (SC) meetings, you may want to join us for the
next meeting and discuss it with all of us at that time.

Thanks.

Bill Flanagan





On Feb 8, 2008 11:35 PM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday 08 February 2008, Jason Kelly wrote:
> > What do people think?  Would anyone care if the page-specific chat
> > rooms disappeared?
>
> Let's just go with IRC?
>
> - Bryan
> ________________________________________
> Bryan Bishop
> http://heybryan.org/
>
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