XEP-0007: Conferencing SIG

Abstract
A proposal for a Jabber Interest Group that will discuss the protocol for implementing many-to-many communications.
Author
David Waite
Copyright
© 1999 – 2020 XMPP Standards Foundation. SEE LEGAL NOTICES.
Status

Obsolete

WARNING: This document has been obsoleted by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Implementation of the protocol described herein is not recommended. Developers desiring similar functionality are advised to implement the protocol that supersedes this one (if any).
Type
SIG Proposal
Version
1.1 (2002-05-08)
Document Lifecycle
  1. Obsolete

1. Introduction

The following proposal is for the formation of a Jabber Interest Group that will create a new conferencing protocol, as well as create additional functionality and standardize communications on top of said conferencing protocol.

2. Base conferencing protocol

The initial task of the Conferencing SIG will be to propose a Jabber Conferencing specification that will solve various problems which exist in the current "groupchat" specification. This specification is meant to be a foundation for additional functionality; it defines the framework needed to provide additional features, without requiring changes to the framework specification itself. There is also to be a certain amount of feature-negotiation included; the conferencing service can define what features can be declared for a room, both as optional and required client features for room participation.

The framework's scope consists of the following minimum functionality:

In addition to these basic functions, we can imagine numerous different types of conferencing features; for example, hidden rooms created on the fly for discussions between a Jabber user and their friends or co-workers, transports providing access to similar foreign systems such as IRC, additional client functionality such as shared-location (URL/Co-browsing) and whiteboarding, and so on. There might also be requirements for security levels (for instance, normal participant, moderator, and room admin). Additional information may also be conveyed to users about one another, such as a user's real Jabber ID. Room entry or participation within a discussion might also have restrictions on some systems.

The framework protocol is meant to provide a basis for designing these additional features. Some features, such as co-browsing, could be implemented entirely client-side; others may require significant logic within the conferencing implementation. In addition, some features may be optional for participation within a room, while other features could be required in order for a client to participate within a room.

3. Justification for new Conferencing protocol

While the current "groupchat" specification is rather simple to implement, it is rather inflexible and cannot easily be extended; specifically, it has the following disadvantages:

This new conferencing protocol will be designed to solve these problems.

Because of the prevalence of the existing "groupchat" specification for multi-user chats, a long conversion process is anticipated. A server implementation which supports both protocols will simply not allow "groupchat"-only clients to participate in rooms with required features.

4. Continuing Development

As listed above, there is a fairly large number of features that could be developed on top of a well-designed framework. The Conferencing SIG will first be established to develop a framework, with features mainly being compared against the framework for feasibility of implementation. After a proposal has been formalized as a specification, the SIG will become a group for discussing and proposing new features, and for formally specifying those features.


Appendices

Appendix A: Document Information

Series
XEP
Number
0007
Publisher
XMPP Standards Foundation
Status
Obsolete
Type
SIG Proposal
Version
1.1
Last Updated
2002-05-08
Approving Body
XSF Board of Directors
Dependencies
None
Supersedes
None
Superseded By
None
Short Name
N/A
Source Control
HTML

This document in other formats: XML  PDF

Appendix B: Author Information

David Waite
Email
akuma@jabber.org
JabberID
akuma@jabber.org

Copyright

This XMPP Extension Protocol is copyright © 1999 – 2020 by the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF).

Permissions

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to make use of the Specification without restriction, including without limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy, modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification. Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP Standards Foundation.

Disclaimer of Warranty

## NOTE WELL: This Specification is provided on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ##

Limitation of Liability

In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall the XMPP Standards Foundation or any author of this Specification be liable for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising from, out of, or in connection with the Specification or the implementation, deployment, or other use of the Specification (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if the XMPP Standards Foundation or such author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

IPR Conformance

This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which can be found at <https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/ipr-policy> or obtained by writing to XMPP Standards Foundation, P.O. Box 787, Parker, CO 80134 USA).

Visual Presentation

The HTML representation (you are looking at) is maintained by the XSF. It is based on the YAML CSS Framework, which is licensed under the terms of the CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.

Appendix D: Relation to XMPP

The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 6120) and XMPP IM (RFC 6121) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.

Appendix E: Discussion Venue

The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.

Discussion by the membership of the XSF might also be appropriate (see <http://mail.jabber.org/mailman/listinfo/members> for details).

Errata can be sent to <editor@xmpp.org>.

Appendix F: Requirements Conformance

The following requirements keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".

Appendix G: Notes

Appendix H: Revision History

Note: Older versions of this specification might be available at http://xmpp.org/extensions/attic/

  1. Version 1.1 (2002-05-08)
    Changed Status to Obsolete per approval of XEP-0019.
    psa
  2. Version 1.0 (2001-08-03)
    Initial version
    akuma

END