The U of M discovers Jabber
Mike A. just brought to my attention the fact that the U of M has set up an all-U IM server using the Jabber protocol. Their reason for this move?
Jabber is an open, XML-based instant messaging (IM) technology. By hosting our own Jabber servers, the University can provide safer and more flexible instant messaging for its users.
The ability to host IM traffic on University servers allows us to protect our users against sophisticated virus and worm attacks, such as the ones that spread over AIM in Spring 2005.
All this seems quite sensible, and I really like Jabber (my Spring, 2004, Software Design class wrote Jabber based chat clients), but I’m not real convinced that this is going to fly. So far they’ve done pretty much nothing to inform the university community that they’ve done this, and I’m totally not sure that they’ll be able to convince the students, who have IM contacts all over the universe (most of which use either AIM or MSN), to switch over and use this. I wish them luck, but I’m not putting money down.
And what is up with the U’s continued schizo attitude towards Open Source tools? Last year they adopted Oracle’s on-line calendar system (internally called UMCal) without even considering an open source alternative. And they continue to promote the use of WebCT despite the existence of several plausible open source alternatives (some of which the U is even helping support, at least on paper).
Yet, when they wanted to set up an IM server, they go with the open source Jabber option. Hmmm… Why is that? Maybe because there were no good proprietary options?!? Arghhhh…
And while I’m ranting, I’ll express my concern about what I perceive to be a growing trend both within the larger U and here at UMM to build this type of closed, inwarding looking solution (”We support IM, but you can only talk to U of M people.”) in response to real and perceived security issues. A vibrant, successful university is almost certainly an outward looking institution, aware of and part of conversations and activities that span the entire globe. This move to closed, internal communications networks is inherently inconsistent with the mission and goals of the institution.
PeeZed manages to handle the many security issues surrounding his highly successful (and wonderfully “controversial”) blog all on his lonesome while still inviting and encouraging the participation of a large and active community. You’d think that the massive resources of the U could do better than running around locking all the doors.
Maybe I should ask them to disallow phone calls to my office from off campus. Then I wouldn’t have to talk to those pesky colleagues, alums, employers seeking a reference for a student, and that woman who wanted to interview me two weeks ago about a security clearance for a recent graduate.
Think of all the blogging I could do … uh … work I could get done without all those tedious interruptions…
September 7th, 2005 at 16:32
Well, David Loewi has suggested moving Pharyngula to a server on its own virtual net and firewall — as long as it doesn’t hurt performance or limit access, I’m willing to go along with it.
As far as Jabber goes, I’ve been pushing it on my students lately. You know that the new Google Talk client is Jabber based, right? Your gmail address is also your google talk ID. I’ve got my client open to both AIM (myers@mac.com) and Jabber (pzmyers@gmail.com) all the time, and my students only seem to connect over AIM.
September 7th, 2005 at 17:46
But David is also moving to have things like wikis and forums that are only accessible by U of M folks; they’ll use X.500 authentication to get keep the rest of the riff-raff out. I think many people like this approach because they believe it to be more “secure”, but I think that it’s a long-term mistake as it prevents valuable connections and interactions with the outside world. But that’s just me.
I was aware of the GTalk thing, but hadn’t used it. (I played with GMail, but then quit using it for various reasons that we can go into later. Or not :-).) And it’s certainly interesting that Apple’s iChat now supports Jabber. Most chat clients have ignored Jabber, which has also hurt adoption, but that’s changing which could be the winds of change.
Your data on what the students connect with doesn’t surprise me as I think they use the tools that give them access to their friends. Their friends aren’t on Jabber, so they don’t use it. That could change, and Google has the kind of clout to potentially bring about that change, but I doubt that the U of M (or any other academic institution) has the necessary clout. Unless faculty require students to use Jabber (and I can’t see myself going there), I doubt students are going to go that direction in the near future.
September 10th, 2005 at 22:22
So, Phi, I was just thinking of dropping you a line about wikis, and find you on similar subjects. My new employer has a need for a ‘knowledge base’ tool of some kind. A few of us are thinking a wiki may be the way to go. If I recall, you have some ideas on wikis, beyond the TWiki you use. One hitch is that all our servers are Windows 2003.
Any ideas?
On the IM front, I use Trillian client on PC and Fire on Mac for their multi system function, and because they doesnt completely inundate my computer with crap like the AIM client does. Not aware if either supports Jabber or not.
Setting up a communication system that only works on campus strikes me as quite antithetical to the university mission, and something that wont be adopted by students since they cant talk to all their friends … which is why they use IM. Does this Jabber standard at least extend across all UM campuses?
Paul is probably right though that Google can create a new standard if anyone can. And I do continue to use Gmail as my sole personal email, although their big brotherism does give me pause.
September 11th, 2005 at 23:34
I started a simple comment response to your wiki question, and then it got well out of control and I ended up posting that as a post of its own. Hope that helps.
I definitely agree with you on the problems with an IM system that’s just internal to the U of M. It does work across the entire U of M system, but I don’t think that’s going to help a lot. It doesn’t connect to the State University system, for example, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of where friends might be.
Do you forward your university address to GMail or keep them separate? I played with forwarding all my U e-mail to GMail for a while and had mixed feelings about the results. I liked a lot of GMail’s features, but found that my small brain had a hard time with juggling two accounts, and certainly can’t drop my “official” University account.
Thanks for your comments!
September 23rd, 2005 at 14:56
I run completely separate gmail and work accounts, and separate gmail for my DD moniker as well. For one thing it helps keep the replies going from where I want them to. And for clarification I have departed the land of academia for the
pirateprivate sector. I will read your no doubt brilliant post on wikis. Thanks in advance.