Following on from a post by Ben Metcalfe about the new version of Gtalk, all of the features that are added in Gtalk will (if ratified) form part of the open jabber protocol.

All features are first passed to Jabber as part of a Jabber Enhancement Proposal (JEP) which is an official document proposing a new enhancement to the protocol itself.  If this is ratified it becomes part of the official Jabber protocol.

Now obviously Google want their IM client having these features now and have implemented the JEPs without having it ratified first.  Which isn’t by any means a bad thing, but means gtalk doesn’t follow the jabber protocol to the letter.

Just a clear up for some issues that seem to have crept up.