[Debtags-devel] Debtags use case

[Enrico Zini]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2005 at 12:22:14AM +0200, Erich Schubert wrote:

> What has become of our goal of having clear-cut definitions of everything?
> Maybe use "messaging" or so. But IMHO "instant messaging" is not
> clearly cut at all.
> You can transfer files, make video calls, voice calls, send SMS...
> Oh, and does an SMS tool qualify as IM? Does IRC qualify as IM? Why not?

Ehi, no need to despair: we can work a good definition.

So, the difference between instant messaging and only messaging seems to
be the 'instant' part.  E-mail can be 'messaging', but you aren't
guaranteed that the message instantly gets there.  SMS, protocol-wise,
are like e-mail (they seem instant, but try sending "happy new year"
messages at 00:05 of January, 1st and you'll realize they arrive at
around 4:00 :)

So we're looking at a category for protocols that allows you to have
synchronous text communication.  Protocols, not use.  But does sending
synchronous text messages belong to 'protocols' or to 'use'? 

If we strictly look at 'protocol', we aren't able to do this
classification: protocols can continuously be abused to do something
else.  ICMP has been used for instant messaging (I remember a package in
Debian but I can't find it right now).  DNS is used to relay IP packets
(package nstx).

So, thinking more, protocols could keep being a flat group (like
culture) and we can fit 'instant messaging' somewhere else.  Where?  In
use we have 'chatting' which seems to be already quite ok (what's the
difference between IM and chatting?  And are there chatting systems that
are not IM?), and I can't think atm about a place to fit it.  Besides,
when one selects 'use::chatting' then choices of 'protocol' will
restrict to the IM ones.

So, uhm, I might have changed my mind :)


Ciao,

Enrico

--
GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico at enricozini.org>
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