Presence and IntComm WG

["Ben Chinowsky" <>]

*Action Items as of October 6*

(high priority)
[ACTION] For the next few conference calls, Rodger will recruit PIC-SER
participants to summarize their experiences.
[ACTION] Based on PIC-SER experiences, the group will evaluate what functions
(e.g. group chat) should be added to the next version of the package.
[ACTION] Jamey will see if there's a writeup of the HP work on Linux location
tracking technologies.
[ACTION] Candace will send Steve a link to the skiff primer.
[ACTION] Candace will follow up with Mike on the presence-updates issue.
[ACTION] Rodger will see if Eyeball Networks (http://www.eyeball.com/) can
provide a guest speaker on a future call.
[ACTION] Rodger will send out a list of suggested topics for discussion on
the October 6 call.
[ACTION] Dennis will send Steve a short description of the proposed topic for
Cullen Jennings' talk.

(medium priority)
[ACTION] Steve will try to schedule Cullen Jennings as a guest speaker
on one of the PIC conference calls.
[ACTION] Ben T. will put Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 on PALS, backing up the 
SQL
database so we can re-create accounts later; then Jamey will update SER on 
PALS
with the latest PIC-SER package.
[ACTION] Candace will add a Wiki document on strict vs. loose routing.

(low priority)
[ACTION] Candace and Jamey will initiate an email discussion of their proposal
to modify the SER PA module so it can do presence via SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY, to
accommodate clients that don't do PUBLISH.
[ACTION] Jamey will enable eyeBeam to use presence info to decide
whether messages should go straight to voicemail.
[ACTION] Jamey will update the interface requirements document.
[ACTION] Jamey will continue working on the future of the skiffs, and solicit
opinions from PIC members as needed.
[ACTION] People will research skiff-like offerings from various companies:
- Dennis - Newbury
- Rodger - Airespace (now part of Cisco)
- Jeremy - Eckehau (via Walt Magnussen)
[ACTION] Candace will look into Tyler Johnson's H.350-enabled version of the
NIST client.
[ACTION] Ben T. will write a short document describing the motivation for the
paths-in-the-snow approach to PIC development.

*Attendees*

Rodger Will (chair) - Ford
Mike Van Norman - UCLA
John Stier - Stony Brook
Ben Teitelbaum - Internet2
Dennis Baron - MIT
Jamey Hicks - Nokia
Candace Holman - Harvard
Steve Blair - Penn
Ben Chinowsky (scribe) - Internet2

*Discussion*

The group welcomed back Jamey, who has been busy making the transition to his
new job at Nokia. From Jamey's Sept. 21 email:

> I recently started a new job at Nokia as Director of the Nokia MIT
> Lablet soon to be in Cambridge, MA. The charter of the lab is Mobile
> Ecosystem 2012, working on phones, personal communication devices and
> peripherals, and applications and frameworks. According to the charter,
> the work will consist of 4 or 5 joint research projects with MIT. I
> think it is safe to assume that we will be doing SIP-based
> communications as part of the work.

Jamey noted that Andy at HP is making progress toward open-sourcing the 
skiffs.
[ACTION] Jamey will see if there's a writeup of the HP work on Linux location
tracking technologies. [ACTION] Candace will send Steve a link to the skiff
primer.

Jamey and Steve are planning to work with Vaclav Kubart of iptel on
incorporating the PIC-SER code into the main SER code base. The pic-dev list
will be used for this work.

The group reviewed developments at VON. Candace noted that NAT traversal
is a new focus for SIP in IETF; the IETF BEHAVE working group
(http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/behave-charter.html) is addressing this.
Ben T. noted that Asterisk is being used as part of a bicycle-generator-
powered VoIP solution for extremely remote villages in Africa.
[See http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=13139]
Overall the emphasis at VON continues to be on voice, not presence.

Mike reviewed the UCLA PIC-SER deployment. About a dozen people participated,
mostly using eyeBeam. In general the technology worked well; the
disappearing-presence-updates issue was the main exception. For unknown 
reasons,
changing the refresh interval didn't fix it for this group; [ACTION] Candace
will follow up with Mike on the presence-updates issue. Mike noted that his
users are mostly interested in IM, which meant that the trial got little use, 
as
people fell back on the IM systems they were used to. From UCLA's standpoint,
the main issues are not technology but usability and integration with what
people are already using -- it would be interesting to get true neophytes
involved, but they are hard to find. Mike is planning to continue with the
trial, broaden it to more users, and do usability testing with an assortment 
of
IM clients.

The group considered moving to a biweekly call schedule, but agreed to stick
with the current weekly schedule. [ACTION] Rodger will see if Eyeball Networks
(http://www.eyeball.com/) can provide a guest speaker on a future call. 
[ACTION]
Rodger will send out a list of suggested topics for discussion on the October 
6
call. Cullen Jennings has agreed to be a guest speaker; the group agreed to 
ask
him to speak on SIP identity, and to combine the PIC and SIP.edu calls for 
this
talk. [ACTION] Dennis will send Steve a short description of the proposed 
topic
for Cullen Jennings' talk.