So, Google is making a lot of headway with their Jabber server. They have opened up server-to-server (s2s) functionality, and they have added the vCard avatar to the user's account. However, they lack the rest of the XML vCard spec. This includes, but is definitely not limited to:
- Full name
- Nickname
- Birthday
- Phone #
- Homepage
- Corporation
- Department
- Position
- Role
- Street
- City
- State
- Postal Code
- Country
- About
While many users may feel that they do not want to publish much of that data, many people do. I look at corporations mainly with the XML vCard. Publishing contact information for a client/vendor has proven to be quite useful. Most businesses put their contact information at the bottom of an email as a signature.
While I applaud Google for the use of Jabber using Gmail accounts, I feel that they are only taking advantage of the smaller aspects of what makes Jabber superior to other IM protocols.
Only one question that I am unsure about. I believe vCards can be stored on the client machine rather than the server. If this is the case, then Google just might support it through those means. If so, does anyone know of a GPL licensed Linux Jabber client that stores vCards on the client machine?
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