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…
