jabber field on db.debian.org?
Hi!
I was just wondering - there is this icq-field on
<http://db.debian.org/>, which I have to say I'm not really happy with.
It's not the kind of thing that seems the right thing[tm] for Debian. I
would rather like to have a jabber field instead of that....
jabber, you might ask? From the jabber.org FAQ: "Jabber is an
XML-based, open-source system and protocol for real-time messaging and
presence notification." You might say: "Hey, that's the same as icq, so
why bother?" But I say: "Hey, it's open-source, and that's what Debian
is all about, right?" So, instead of supporting (and even encouraging
the developers!) the usage of a closed-source (but reverse engineered?)
protocol we should state once again what Debian is all about, right?
I see that there might be problems due to the translation: Current
icq-field can't simply be turned into a jabber-field which would produce
some problems. On the other hand, another field might take lots of space
on the disk.
So I thought a little about it and came up with the following:
-) The current field could be used for either one, and on display it
could be decided that it is a icq-field if it contains only of numbers.
-) Or, during a short period (say, 2 months or so?) both fields could be
there, and icq should really be dropped.
-) Finally, icq field could simply be dropped.
Last point isn't really the best way to go - though there are currently
only 115 people using the icq field, according to Jason Gunthorpe,
including me. And I think I'm not the only one of those people (at
least I know also that Othmar Pasteka would encourage this change).
Jason said he won't decide - I really understand that. But maybe if
some of the other 113 people that are currently using the icq field (or
also others, that might use the jabber field) could comment on this it
would be greatly encouraged to express your feelings :-)
So, comments are welcome, Cc: from messages to the list NOT!
Alfie
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