Federation using RFC3920 and RFC3921 (XMPP)

[jschwartzenberg]

Description of the Feature

I'm curious whether it has been considered to implement federation with other servers. Implementing the server-to-server (S2S) parts of RFC3920 and RFC3921 would enable users to communicate with people using different servers.
For a short while this exact feature was also supported by AIM's servers to enable communication with people using Google Talk.

Use Case

User A logs on to a Retro AIM Server with their classic client. User B uses a modern XMPP client to log on to their usual chat service provider. (A list of some is here: https://providers.xmpp.net/)
They can add each other and communicate, each with their favorite client.

Potential Challenges

Addresses are typically in the form of user@server. This is supported by modern AIM clients and was used to let them add users with a @gmail.com who where using Google Talk. For older clients, this might need a trick to encode the address in a specific way, so that Retro AIM Server knows it's not a local contact.

Additional Information

The original announcements related to federation between AIM and Google Talk:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110512041232/http://www.aim.com/google-chat-changes
https://gmail.googleblog.com/2011/05/changes-and-improvements-to-aim.html

[mk6i]

Thanks for the suggestion, will definitely take a look when I start thinking about federation.

Prototype implementations from the community are also welcome!