Re: [JDEV] my interest -- a few questions

[Jeremie <jeremie@jabber.org>]

> > d] uin's / id's / searching -- this might seem too simplistic, but, basically,
> > how's the "search for a user" work?  the jabber distribution model seems to
> > imply that no one server can know where every other jabber server is -- thus
> > would there have to be a central jabber "directory server" that every jabber
> > server would have to have a special module to connect to?
> 
> It would not be trivial to make a "search for user" option but there are a
> few ways you could go about it.  One approach would be to have a voluntary
> directory where people could enter their jabber adresses and names.  This
> is an approach I would favor.  Another possibility would be to extend the
> servers to perhaps respond to a query from a user with a list of users.
> This has lots of problems, first being that you would need a standard way
> of addressing servers and the second being that many users would not want
> to be listed in such ways.  Furthermore, you would still need a list of
> servers which probably would not be all that accurate.  I think one or
> many voluntary databases where people can enter their names and make
> queries is the best approach.

I really like the voluntary approach also... probably something
@jabber.org would be a good plan.

Here is another idea that might just work: Reaper.  This is based on the
<query/> proposal(and one of the reasons for querying).  Basically, a
client doing a search would send a search query to their server.  Their
server would then query all the modules to see if that is a local user.
Then, failing that, the server could forward the query on to a
master-query server, the Reaper.  The Reaper would routinely connect to
any known(registered) public servers and query them for "public" users,
basically users that opt-in for this service.  It would collect them and
use that as a search base for the master queries.

Again, this needs real-world implementation and testing...

Jer