Is Google backing off from open standards? | Hacker News Reader

Is Google backing off from open standards?

8 pointsshmerl6 comments

Some troubling developments:

* XMPP: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-expected-to-unify-chat-under-the-name-babble-20130318/

* CalDAV: http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html

Okay, lets consider those: XMPP: Undisclosed sources tell an internet news site that Google is consolidating existing services, some of which are XMPP based, into a new centralized service. News site asserts that Google's shutting off of inboud XMPP subscription requests (which Google announced was an emergency move to control spam, after asking other XMPP operators for alternatives and still openly seeking alternatives that allow federation and effectively control) is part of the plan for this new service to be a walled garden that you can only use as Google wants. No mention is made of Google's public explanations for the reasons for the shutdown of external access in the article, which is either intentionally misleading or a sign that the author just hasn't done their homework.

Aside from the troubling things it says about the quality of web-based journalism, I don't see anything troubling (or even, particularly credible) here.

CalDAV: Google has deprecated their current (incomplete) always-labelled-as-experimental CalDAV API for Google Calendar with 6 months of lead time before deactivation, announced that the new version of the CalDAV API support will initially, at least, be whitelist-only with an application process, and announced that they've already reached agreements the operators that provide 98% of CalDAV traffic to Google Calendar for continued access.

So, continued -- probably even improved -- support for an open standard, but, at least temporarily, less-open access to the API. Might be troubling from the perspective of unrestricted API-based access to Google services, but doesn't seem to be troubling from the perspective of Google's commitment to open standards.

Let's hope.

Google's temporary XMPP limitation (which wasn't a complete deactivation of external interaction) via whitelisting is expected, per Google's announcement, to be replaced with a new antispam solution that allows federated interaction without whitisting next week.

(see http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-March/001635...)

So, the idea that it limiting XMPP interaction was secretly part of a master plan to move Google Talk into a walled garden with no off-Google's-system interaction, which was wildly unsupported from the beginning, is looking less credible.

Thanks for the pointer. Cal(Card)DAV issue still looks weird though. Why does Google need to make their own proprietary API instead of just using Cal(Card)DAV?

Google was never open.

Google was never completely open. But they were supportive of open standards before. This is a serious trend reversal.

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