XMPP and Jabber
The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) emerged from the Jabber open-source community starting in 1999. Thus the terms "Jabber" and "XMPP" are often used interchangeably. This page provides a bit of background information about Jabber and XMPP.
Jabber technologies were invented by Jeremie Miller in 1998. He was tired of running four different clients for the popular instant messaging (IM) services, so in true open-source fashion he decided to "scratch an itch" by solving the problem himself. His goal? To foster freedom of conversation. His method? To build an IM technology that would be:
- Open -- anyone can write their own Jabber software using the open specifications that define how the technology works
- Decentralized -- anyone can run their own Jabber server and connect to other servers on the network
- Secure -- strong encryption, authentication, and identity features help to ensure confidentiality, protect privacy, and prevent spam
- Flexible -- the same Jabber transport used or IM can also be used to exchange any structured data, including custom payloads
In other words, NOT a closed, insecure, unfriendly, centralized, proprietary instant messaging silo.
When Jeremie released the first version of his server on January 4, 1999, the open-source community responded by contributing clients, server components, and code libraries. To communicate over the Internet, these entities used a common XML protocol on the wire, which eventually became known as the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol or XMPP. The rest is history.