Offline messaging specified in JEP-0160

A few weeks ago I discussed with Peter Saint-Andre the problem that there were no best practises specified for so called “offline messaging” with the XMPP standard. While Instant Messaging is one application that implements the XMPP protocol (as further described in XMPP-IM) and while for “Instant Messaging” the delivery of a message to a person who isn’t available at the time message is being sent isn’t (always) critical, other applications that implement the XMPP standard might or might not have reasons to mark this aspect of the standard as an important one.

Since as far as I know all Jabber service implementations support this “offline messaging”-feature, there was a need for specifying the best practises.

So Peter specified it in JEP-0160: Best Practices for handling offline messages.

I’d like to thank Peter Saint-Andre for making this Jabber Enhancement Proposal.

We are planning to use XMPP for applications like distributed package management. We’d like to signal clients when they should update themselves. And we’d like to make sure clients will get that message when they rejoin the network in case of being offline or unavailable (mobile devices and in case a desktop on a corporate network was shut down). It’s also interesting for the concept of distributed personal preference management or distributed desktop configuration. Why reinvent the wheel if you have both good and existing/tested service implementations and a suitable standard for this? XMPP fits the requirement.