Comments on: Google won't run all the Wave servers

The new real-time communications platform will be federated, so anyone will be able to run their own Wave server.

[kdbaumann]

"In contrast, only Google runs the Gmail servers."

What does this have to do with your article, or for that matter reality?

Gmail is a frontend to the email system. SMTP which currently, EVERY mail message is sent over, and has been for the last oh +20 years. That's part of the building blocks of the Internet.

Gmail is more akin to Outlook Express or Hotmail, than what you are talking about. OF COURSE only Google runs Gmail servers. That's their frontend.

Now why is this important? Because it goes to my ability to believe what you write, that you are getting it right.

Wave, isn't like SMTP, or it potentially could be if they took it to the IETF, and it was just a protocol, but its a server that they are putting into the open source community. That's a bit like Apache.

At least have a basic understanding when you write about these things.

[tehrani625]

Yes Google does run the Gmail servers like yahoo runs the yahoo mail servers. What the author is saying is that wave is not just a service that Google is going to host, but a new standard like SMTP that people and businesses can run on their own servers. Or did I miss something? Ether way this sounds really cool.

[rafe]

That's a valid point. GMail interacts with all the other SMTP machines on the Net. However, the underlying server code of GMail is Google's own, and has not been shared, at least not as far as I know.

I'm not sure if Google is going to release the Wave server code or just the Wave protocols.

[jtara]

No, Gmail is more akin to an Outlook server, along with a companion web client and native client (i.e. Outlook). While it supports POP and IMAP for client access to mail, it supports the latter only in a semi-compatible way, because of the way they have extended the logical basis of IMAP. (i.e. GMail "tags" have to be emulated using IMAP "folders", and they don't really map well, as the concepts are completely different.)

Gmail is it's own little world, which has some degree of compatibility with existing client-access methods.

What they are proposing here is something completely new built on new standards. As such, there wouldn't be issues of half-compatibility.

I'm not defending Google, here. Indeed, I have a bit of trouble grasping just what problem they are trying to solve. They need to come up with a one-paragraph or better one-sentence description of what it is and why it is needed. As it is, I really don't see how it relates to email at all. Instant messaging != email. They have different purposes and uses, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to try to muddle them together.

We DO need a new, ground-up redesign of email that will solve security, authentication, and spam issues. I'm just not sure that this is it.

It's certainly valid, in any case, to contrast the approach Google is taking with Wave with that of Gmail.

[richard.watson]

Don't be a jerk, mister "have a basic understanding". Gmail is many things, for a start. Calling it a "front-end" for SMTP is missing the point by a mile. It stores huge amounts of data, is a serious mail search engine, probably sends more Gmail-Gmail mail than to any other place and they don't need SMTP for that. It's also an advert platform, making huge amounts of money. None of that would change if they replaced the protocol.

And while we're on protocols, wave is also like SMTP. Exactly like it. There's a wave protocol. Weirdly, at http://www.waveprotocol.org/

[3tire]

kdbaumann, apparently you've made a decision as to what gmail is "like" (which is woefully imprecise) and decided to lord it all over everyone.

Would you like us now to direct jerk responses to you?

[NathanOen]

-- by rafe May 29, 2009 7:41 PM PDT
-- That's a valid point. GMail interacts with all the other SMTP machines on the Net. However, the underlying server --- code of GMail is Google's own, and has not been shared, at least not as far as I know.
-- I'm not sure if Google is going to release the Wave server code or just the Wave protocols.

None is sharing or open source their underlying server-code. Yahoo didn't, MS well we all know don't share, why you want Google share GMail server-code. That is the premise of GWT toolkit that you write client and communicate with your server code. Wave will be the same thing, there will be server/provider (Google will be the first), client code (the one you see on demo). But others could write their own client code as Thunderbird for email client, one also freely to implement their server code according to wave protocol specs. But Wave is more federated than anything we have currently.

[Jeremy Chappell]

@rafe

Google have said they will release their implementation of Wave. This can be a "starting point" (or you just shoehorn in your own logos). You can build your own custom implementation (and even then having Google's "reference implementation" is useful to test against).

And the Gmail thing has nothing to do with anything. Although they have released the building blocks (GWT).

[flickrz]

"But a successful, well-performing, wide-scale rollout requires advanced technology that few companies have the chops to write, and it's hard to keep performance up as the size of the user community grows."
May be microsoft has technical chops to rollout such technology. Oh wait....

[monkeyfun14]

What is the point of your post but to be a troll who has no clue what he/she is talking about?

[forever4now]

If Wave catches on, companies like IBM, HP, Oracle, etc. would be able to provide the technical expertise to implement & deploy it for other companies. And if it became clear that Wave would ultimately replace Exchange, etc. Microsoft could certainly outsource their technical skills, for this purpose also. IBM has made a great business out of engineering & consulting services. Why not Microsoft?

[Apacheking]

I agree with kdbaumann, the author has no idea what technology is about and should either spend time educating himself or stick to commenting on things that he knows( not much unfortunately) and not to pass of BS as analysis on technology. Its better off that he sticks to simple minded apllications and make wild claims.

[mdg1019]

Is it a matter of not understanding the technology or an inability to get his point across due to crappy writing skills. I often wonder where websites like this get their writers from. Most don't seem to have a clue about writing.

[pcunix]

Actually, it's you two who don't understand yet.

Because Google wants to "Federate" Wave, any company will be able to run a Wave server which will interact with other Wave servers- just like any company can run an SMTP server that interacts with other SMTP servers.

Wave and Email are exactly alike in that regard. The rest is just details: for example, I don't know how a Wave server is going to do the equivalent of an MX lookup. But those details WILL come.

It's going to be interesting. As I said in an earlier comment, I think most of us WILL transition to Wave. "Google won't own all the Wave servers" was what the author originally misunderstood. That means that while I have "[e-mail]" now, I might put a WAve server at my own domain, just as I do for email now. Or, that domain's Waves may be handled by someone like Google - just as Google handles some domains SMTP servers now.

[simply7]

"That means it will make it possible for anyone to operate their own Wave server and have it communicate with other Wave servers."

Like SIP Proxies? Wow that is so not exciting and it sounds like Google learned not to lock people into GAE by creating a SIP like infrastructure.

[Jeremy Chappell]

It's a bit more than that. For one thing it means private information is just that - private, if company x has their own wave server people on that server can talk privately and it will never leave their server (even in a wave with participants from outside company x). This is important. The live aspect is also maintained.

These are hard things to do.

[AlexYuriev]

Who let this clown write articles about subjects the clown does not understand? SMTP/ESMTP is an RFC. Gmail does not speak SMTP. Gmail is a client. SMTP/ESMTP is a protocol.

Can someone please gag this Technological Charlatan?

[dan211a]

I think the author referred to gmail as the whole service, which is essentially a mail server (well, multiple servers obviously, each doing its bit) supporting smtp, imap, and a webmail frontend.

As to what Google intends to provide with wave: they specify the wave protocol, AND they intend to provide the wave server and wave client as open source. Quoting from http://www.waveprotocol.org/ :

"our plan is to release an open source, production-quality, reference implementation of the Google Wave client and server, as well as provide an open federation endpoint by the time users start getting access".

[gerrrg]

This is quite special...using such collaborative software behind a firewall between coworkers would make life awesome, especially for project teams separated by cubicles, miles or continents.

[kenstech_com]

Sounds like an opportunity for some enterprising folks. If this is going to be big, and I suspect it will because google is behind it, then it will have a pretty big market presence. So all you people out there who are always wishing after the fact that you could have caught some tech gravy train while it was just getting started, well here's your ticket.

That's the great thing about technology, not just google, but the whole tech industry is about creative destruction. If you miss one chance, don't worry, another one will be along shortly.

Ken
http://www.kenstech.com

[sarah_oneill]

Wave will make us rethink what the browser is capable of. Even if we don't all drop email for wave, which I think is unlikely, it will affect how we relate to email and other electronic communication. There's an interesting article <a href="http://www.atelier-us.com/non-classe/article/google-wave-re-thinks-real-time">here</a>: http://www.atelier-us.com/non-classe/article/google-wave-re-thinks-real-time

[pcunix]

I think we may just drop email.

I can already see that for some communications, a Wave is much better than email. However, when you start such a conversation, you don't necessarily know that it will turn out that you'd like it as a Wave. Therefore, given the option, I'd just start every conversation as a Wave.

There's nothing (other than unwritten software) stopping Wave from interacting with email during the transition. If that software existed, I could add you to a Wave and if you didn't have (or want) Wave, you'd see the conversaion as separate email messages. If you reply, we'd see that as part of the Wave.

Sooner or later, most people would probably start using Wave rather than email. You don't lose anything, you only gain.

[gmiernicki]

Good to see your correction as I stated was a mistake in the original article's comments ;)

[ikramerica--2008]

We'll see how far this goes, but if Google continues to monopolize or destroy markets while feeding it's core business, you could see a similar action by the feds to what happened back in the days of the robber barons owning control of whole industries despite having no no direct business in them. It'll be interesting if Google turns out to be another Standard Oil type situation...

[forever4now]

It seems like many/most industries are in the process of being re-invented right now:
- Cars (electric)
- Energy (wind, solar, geothermal)
- Music & Video (streaming, online stores)
- Publishing (eReaders)
- Mobile (smartphones)
- Computer Hardware (netbooks, smartbooks, MIDs)
- Displays (eInk, OLED)
- Software Sales (app stores)
- ...

Major industry shifts happen and sometimes there are casualties. Didn't the transistor almost destroy the vacuum tube? Didn't the PC almost destroy the mainframe?

Google and Apple just happen to be two of the key leaders in this generation's tech shift. Who knows who it will be the next time?

[sundance808]

SMTP is good for generic email transfers however it makes sense for google to implement their own mail transfer protocols and repository for their gmail system that's the only way they can do the integration/mash-ups and value-added services they are offering.

[odubtaig]

This will be embraced and extended by numerous companies, including Google, I expect (with extensions only usable on their servers).

However, as a basic principle this is very interesting. Things I would hope to see incorporated by default would be connection encryption (via SSL as a minimum) and some sort of PGP/GPG based signature system for legitimate message sending to lock out spam remailer botnets. I can see this being something which would be more useful for work collaboration than anything else. Consider this from a guy who's getting sick of seeing all the @soandso replies outside of Twitter. If I want to see more mangling of the English language I'll sign up to Twitter myself and befriend a gang of dyslexic teenagers. Use proper English. I look forward to the spellchecker that can correct the abominable misuse of 'loose' and 'lose'.

Yes, I'm aware the spammers will find ways around it but it's like cleaning; there'll always be dirt but that doesn't mean you stop cleaning because you'll end up buried under garbage, contract toxic plasmosis and die if you do. The only way to stop the scum taking over is to keep upping the ante.

[odubtaig]

Addendum: the thought has occurred that the reason Google is releasing this as Open Source is because they need others to use it and interoperate with them. If they want this to supplant e-mail then they need it to be as ubiquitous. After this they can then do what they did with e-mail and value-add their own implementation but the basics need to be interoperable so that people aren't put off using Google's 'Wave' because there's no way their colleague or friend at XYZ Corp will have it due to a policy of non-dependence on external services or whatever. For this to take over and smash any potential threat it _needs_ to be controllable by the person or company running it.

Rest assured, Google will find a way to add bells and whistles that are unavailable elsewhere but don't break their implementation's ability to do the basic tasks with others' as will other companies using this.

[liquidmetalband]

Google's product is closed-source, so frankly, all this means is that Google will be saving money on bandwidth.

[odubtaig]

No. It's not. They've stated quite clearly that it will be released as 100% open source. If no-one else uses it because Google controls it too tightly it won't even be useful to Google.