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what-about-design: rework 'what's XMPP' section, try to make it less bulky and easier for non-techs

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Signed-off-by: Maxime “pep” Buquet <pep@bouah.net>
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Maxime “pep” Buquet 2020-07-19 13:34:44 +02:00
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@ -28,33 +28,36 @@ about.
communication protocol, that is nerd speak to say it's a language for
applications to use and talk together at a level that the end-user doesn't
see, an example would be a chat application: your desktop or smartphone app
talking to a server that then talks to another app. It is defined as a
standard at the [<abbr title="Internet Engineering Task
Force">IETF</abbr>](https://ietf.org) that also serves as a home for many
other building blocks of the Internet and technology all of us use today. The
IETF itself is guided by their [mission statement][IETF_mission].
talking to a server that then talks to another app.
[IETF_mission]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3935.html
It is defined as a standard at the [<abbr title="Internet Engineering Task
Force">IETF</abbr>](https://ietf.org), a standard being the specification of a
protocol -- a document, public and accessible by anyone in this case -- that
allows multiple products implementing what it describes to be able to work
together in an interoperable way.
Core extensions of XMPP are written so that it is easily extensible allowing
anybody to use custom (XML) elements for their own use, and optionally write a
specification for their new feature for everyone else to use. XMPP also
defines a server/client model, where multiple servers can communicate
together, thus allowing for [decentralization] -- anyone setting up their own
server to be free from restrictions of other servers, and communicating with
the world or part of it.
Core specifications of XMPP are written so that it is easily extensible
allowing any developer to use custom (XML) elements for their own use, and
optionally write a specification for their new feature for everyone else to
use.
XMPP also defines a server/client model, where multiple servers can
communicate together, thus allowing for [decentralization] -- anyone setting
up their own server to be free from restrictions of other servers, and
communicating with the world or part of it.
[decentralization]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization#Technological_decentralization
So there we have it: (IETF) __Standard__, __Decentralized__, and
__Extensible__. These are I believe the 3 selling-points of XMPP.
From there tons of features can be implemented and then negociated (as part
of the extensibility) and many things can change to use newer extensions that
weren't considered in the core specifications. For example the serialization
format (originally XML) can be changed (just as [EXI][XEP-0322] is doing), and
it's also perfectly fine to have non-compliant behaviour as long as it has
been negociated by entities taking part in it. And so on…
From there tons of features can be implemented and then negociated (as part of
the extensibility) and many things can change to use newer extensions that
weren't considered in the core specifications. For example even the
serialization format (words of the language applications talk, originally XML)
can be changed (just as [EXI][XEP-0322] is doing), and it's also perfectly
fine to have non-compliant behaviour as long as it has been negociated by
entities taking part in it. And so on…
[XEP-0322]: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0322.html