[RTW] Does RTC-WEB need to pick a signaling protocol?

[Matthew Kaufman]

On 1/29/2011 6:35 AM, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote:
>
> That said, even if one asks the question of whether it is a good idea 
> for us to pick something, I think the answer is no. The enormous 
> benefit of the web model is its ability for innovation and velocity. 
> Standardization is not needed for communications within the domain of 
> the provider; new features can be developed and deployed as quickly as 
> they can be conceived.

Agreed. Consider the case of Gmail (or any other web-based email)

Did every web browser on the planet need to be upgraded to speak IMAP or 
SMTP in order for Gmail to be implemented? No.

Does the JavaScript that Gmail sends down to your browser in order to 
implement its UI need to be standardized among web email platforms? No.

Does Google need to use the same JavaScript libraries and PHP back-end 
that SquirrelMail uses in order to implement a web email application? No.

Can Google change that JavaScript tomorrow without breaking 
interoperability? Yes, and they probably will.

But could Gmail be as successful without the worldwide SMTP 
infrastructure it ties in to? Probably not.

I see the same situation here. A web browser with real-time 
communication capabilities will work in conjunction with a web site that 
serves up the HTML and JavaScript that makes up the calling application. 
For some applications, this will be sufficient. For others, one will 
want to implement SIP or XMPP/Jingle or something else in order to 
gateway these calls to other networks. The SIP implementation can live 
in the JavaScript, up in the web server, in a separate gateway, or any 
combination thereof.

Matthew Kaufman