Instant messaging for EXO

Instant messaging (IM) is a very effective tool for quick communication in a distributed collaboration. It is complementary to tools like e-mail and confluence, and is particularly useful for quick questions, like "Why doesn't this work?" or "Did you just break everything?".

There are many instant messaging clients and many instant messaging protocols (aim, icq, yahoo, etc). Fortunately many clients can now speak multiple protocols, and there are also bridges between different networks, so interoperability is becoming less of a problem.

I suggest using the XMPP protocol (previously called Jabber). This is an open XML based protocol with support from many servers and clients. It is also the protocol used by GoogleTalk.

I also recommend using Pidgin (previously called GAIM) as an IM client. This works on Windows, MacOSX, Linux and is pre-installed on SLAC linux. It can speak many protocols including XMPP. To be effective it is best if everyone uses the same IM protcol, it is not necessary for the all to use the same client – some may prefer the IChat client built in to MacOSX (I think this supports XMPP but I need to check).

How to get started?

Easiest way would be for everyone to get a gmail ID (or a second gmail ID if you don't want to mix EXO stuff with your existing personal gmail account). Then just add your id to this table

An alternative would be to run our own jabber server, this is quite simple, but I am not sure it gains us anything over using gmail.