Google is eventually migrating away from XMPP for the Android platform's Google Talk service. I'm not going to argue that it shouldn't, or that XMPP is superior to a binary protocol. But I'll discuss the appearance and what bothers me about it.
I enjoy Linux and GNOME and open source because it holds the promise for the ideal future platform for me. Open Source provides me the with the greatest flexibility and capability. For me to enjoy my work, I need Open Source to thrive. I have a rough, "big picture" for the future of the Open Source desktop, and I hope I get to contribute to it.
The appearance of Google's move is that they're migrating away from an open standard for message communication toward a proprietary, binary protocol. Toward the type of protocol that they and the open source community argue against. Of course, they could make their protocol well-documented and provide a good library with a good API for third-party clients. I do not yet understand whether they'll use the binary protocol for Android and provide a gateway between itself and the current XMPP network, or whether all Google Talk services will migrate.
While Google is currently very friendly toward the Open Source movement and open standards, they cannot be trusted absolutely to be so forever. I need to look toward alternatives and not find myself bound to Google. Fortunately, I can pull my blogs via their ATOM API; my e-mail via IMAP and POP3; my calendar via iCal; I don't think I can download my Google Reader data, but it's not a huge loss. I am very grateful for the services that they provide and the access to my data that they allow. I wonder if they would take issue with the term "my data"? However, I am very interested in the rise of Open Services. There are a few out there right now. Ones that are built on Open Source software, employ open standards, and leave data ownership with the user. I need to investigate them more. However, I will at the present remain the subject of convenience, and pretty Googlish interfaces :D
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