XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is the foundation in charge of the standardization of the protocol extensions of XMPP

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...

, the open standard of instant messaging

Instant messaging

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...

 and presence of the IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...

.

History

The XSF was originally called the Jabber Software Foundation (JSF). The Jabber Software Foundation was originally established to provide an independent, non-profit, legal entity to support the development community around Jabber technologies (and later XMPP). Originally its main focus was on developing JOSL, the Jabber Open Source License (since deprecated), and an open standards process for documenting the protocols used in the Jabber/XMPP developer community. Its founders included Michael Bauer and Peter Saint Andre.

Process

Members of the XSF vote on acceptance of new members, a technical Council, and a Board of Directors. However, membership is not required to publish, view, or comment on the standards that it promulgates. The unit of work at the XSF is the XMPP Extension Protocol (XEP); XEP-0001 specifies the process for XEPs to be accepted by the community. Most of the work of the XSF takes place on the XMPP Extension Discussion List and the jdev Chat Room (xmpp:jdev@conference.jabber.org?join).

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of the XMPP Standards Foundation oversees the business affairs of the organization. As elected by the XSF membership, the Board of Directors for 2009-2010 consists of the following individuals:

• Florian Jensen
• Jack Moffitt
  Jack Moffitt
  Jack Moffitt is a computer scientist, software developer and entrepreneur. He is co-author of the GNU GPL licensed streaming media server Icecast and often works on software using XMPP, JavaScript and Erlang. He also worked as executive director of Xiph.Org Foundation and developer of Ogg Vorbis...
  
   (Chair)
• Will Sheward
• Nicolas Vérité

Council

The XMPP Council is the technical steering group that approves XMPP Extension Protocols, as governed by the XSF Bylaws and XEP-0001. The Council is elected by the members of the XMPP Standards Foundation each year in September. The ninth XMPP Council (2009–2010) consists of the following individuals:

• Nathan Fritz
• Ralph Meijer
• Kevin Smith
  Kevin Smith (disambiguation)
  Kevin Smith is an American filmmaker.Kevin Smith may also refer to:In sports:* Kevin Smith , British sprint canoer* Kevin Smith , former American football player for the Dallas Cowboys...
  
   (Chair)
• Remko Tronçon
• Matthew Wild

Emeritus Members

The following individuals are emeritus members of the XMPP Standards Foundation:

• Ryan Eatmon
• Peter Millard (dead)
• Jeremie Miller
  Jeremie Miller
  Jeremie Miller is the inventor of Jabber/XMPP technologies and was the primary developer of jabberd 1.0, the first XMPP server. He also wrote one of the very first XML parsers, in JavaScript. He began working on Jabber in 1998....
  
  
• Julian Missig
• Thomas Muldowney
• Dave Smith
  Dave Smith
  -In sports:*Dave Smith , Scottish football goalkeeper*Dave Smith , Scottish football fullback for clubs including Burnley, managed several clubs in the 1970s/1980s...
  
  

XEPs

One of the most important outputs of the XSF is a series of XEPs. Some have chosen to pronounce "XEP" as if it was spelled "JEP", rather than "ZEP", in order to keep with a sense of tradition. Some XEPs of note include:

• Data Forms
• Service Discovery
• Multi-User Chat
• Publish-Subscribe
• XHTML-IM
• Entity Capabilities
• Bidirectional-streams Over Synchronous HTTP (BOSH)
• Jingle
• Serverless Messaging

XMPP Summit

The XSF biannually holds a XMPP Summit where software and protocol developers from all around the world meet and share ideas and discuss topics around the XMPP protocol and the XEPs. In winter it takes place around the FOSDEM

FOSDEM

FOSDEM is a non-commercial volunteer organized European event centered around free and open source software development. It is aimed at developers and anyone interested in the free and open source software movement...

 event in Brussels, Belgium and in summer it takes place around the OSCON

OSCON

OSCON may refer to:*OS-CON, a type of electronic capacitor.*O'Reilly Open Source Convention*Oscon, Open Source CONtract, the most used open-contract in Italy....

event in Portland, USA. These meetings are open mainly to developers and not so much to marketing people with no costs attached for the participants. However the XSF is open to donations. The first XMPP Summit took place on July 24 and 25, 2006, in Portland.

External links

• Official website of the XMPP Standards Foundation