The Future of LEAP Mohsen Banan public@mohsen.banan.1.byname.net Version 0.1 First Published: August 4, 2000 Last Updated: June 14, 2000 Copyright fcl 2000 Mohsen Banan Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. A Component of The LEAP Manifesto This article is one of a series of articles describing various aspects of the Mobile Messaging industry and the LEAP protocols. For the complete collection of articles see The LEAP Manifesto [1 ], available at http://www.LeapForum.org/LEAP/Manifesto/roadMap/index.html. The LEAP Manifesto is also available at the Free Proto- cols Foundation website at http://www.FreeProtocols.org/LEAP/Manifesto/roadMap/index.html. 1 Contents 1 Where We Are Today 3 2 Invitations to Participate 3 3 Preview of Coming Attractions 5 3.1 MailMeAnywhere.org . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2 ByName.net and ByNumber.net . . . . . 5 2 1 Where We Are Today At the time of writing in June 2000, the basic structure of the LEAP protocols is complete and in place. The key component protocols have been published as Internet RFCs, and public support organizations for the contin- ued development and maintenance of the protocols have been created. All aspects of the LEAP development and maintenance processes conform fully to the basic trilogy of principles that we espouse: patent-freedom, RFC pub- lication, and openness of maintenance. Our next major challenge will be to promote the usage of LEAP throughout the Mobile Messaging industry. We will facilitate and encourage the adoption of LEAP by the following mechanisms: - We will provide free, open-source software imple- mentations of the LEAP protocols for major de- vice platforms such as PalmPilot and Windows CE. This free software will be distributed through http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org. - We will provide free, open-source software imple- mentations of LEAP which are fully integerated with major Message Center platforms such as Send- mail and Qmail. This free software will also ini- tially be distributed through http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org. - We will provide free Subscriber Services. These free services will initially be provided through http://www.ByName.net. The underlying purpose of this is to eliminate all eco- nomic and legal hindrances which might otherwise in- hibit the adoption and usage of LEAP. We accomplish this by means of the patent-freedom of the protocols them- selves, the availability of free, open-source software im- plementations the protocols, and the availability of free support services. The result of this is that the costs of implementing LEAP, other than the associated overhead costs, are zero. By means of this strategy, we intend to make LEAP widespread throughout every segment of the Mobile Mes- saging industry. Our eventual goal is for LEAP to become the natural choice for Mobile Messaging applications. 2 Invitations to Participate This is an ambitious goal, and cannot be accomplished without the cooperation and participation of others within 3 the industry. We invite others to participate in the follow- ing arenas: Invitations to Protocol Developers - Anyone who is interested in ESRO and EMSD is invited to participate in their development through ESRO.org and EMSD.org. - Additional protocols are needed to enable efficient web browsing. A starting point for this, called EHDP (Efficient Hypertext Delivery Protocol), is currently being created. In developing EHDP we intend to build on the work of WAP and the W3 Consortium, and re-use the ESRO technology. We invite others to join us in this development effort. - Additional protocols are needed to enable efficient access to dictionaries and other look-up data struc- tures. A starting point for this, called EDICT (Ef- ficient Dictionary protocol), is currently being cre- ated. In developing EDICT, we intend to build on the existing work already done in the context of the DICT protocol. We invite others to join us in this development effort. - We anticipate that additional protocols will be needed for a variety of future applications, not all of which can be foreseen at this time. These applications will include such things as efficient implementa- tions of ESRO-based instant messaging, chat, white pages, and others. Invitations to Software Developers - Based on the existing open-soure software imple- mentations for end-user devices, we invite others to enhance the PalmPilot and Windows CE imple- mentations, and to port LEAP to additional general- purpose device platforms. - We invite telephone manufacturers and wireless data modem manufacturers to include the LEAP proto- cols as an integral part of their next generation de- vices. - We invite Message Center software developers to enhance and better integrate the Message Center LEAP software. Invitations to Subscriber Services Providers 4 We invite Subscriber Services providers such as AOL, Yahoo, MCI and AT&T to participate in the general concept of providing free services based on free protocols and open-source software, and to inte- grate LEAP into their suite of Subscriber Services. A model of this concept is provided by our own free service at www.ByName.net. Invitations to Systems Integrators Each of the LEAP protocols is a component which must be integrated into larger solutions. In particu- lar, we invite the developers of customer-premise Message Centers to incorporate LEAP into their existing products. 3 Preview of Coming Attractions Several LEAP-based products and services are currently under development. These include MailMeAnywhere, ByName and ByNumber. 3.1 MailMeAnywhere.org In order to make use of the LEAP protocols convenient and widespread, we are providing implementations of the protocols as free and open-source software. Binary for- mats of the software for a variety of platforms are avail- able. In order to provide complete solutions, the LEAP protocol components are integrated with various other free software components, forming consistent and coherent bundles. Since the initial LEAP components are oriented towards interpersonal messaging, the initial software dis- tribution takes place through http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org. MailMeAnywhere is a distribution center for free and open-source software which relates to LEAP, or which fa- cilitates use of the LEAP protocols. Device implementa- tions are available for a large number of general-purpose device platforms. Message Center implementations have been integrated with Qmail and Sendmail. To learn more about MailMeAnywhere, see the web- site at http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org. 3.2 ByName.net and ByNumber.net In order to make use of LEAP protocols convenient and widespread, we are also providing an initial free sub- scriber service which integrates the LEAP protocols into 5 a variety of other services. We are delivering these ser- vices through the ByName.net domain. ByName pro- vides a set of free services, based on free protocols which have been implemented as free software. The ByName services are highly personalized and are based on the user's identity - ByName is based on the user's name, while ByNumber is based on a numerical user ID. A conventional e-mail account typically provides the user with a single address, usually of the form "some- Name@someDomain.com." This provides the user with a single mailbox, to which all mail for that address is sent. This becomes inconvenient when the owner uses the account for multiple types of incoming e-mail. For exam- ple, the user may use the account for both personal and work-related mail, to subscribe to various mailing lists, and to participate in usenet groups. Over time the user may get onto a large number of mailing lists, resulting in an incoming e-mail stream spanning a very wide dynamic range of importance, from urgent personal e-mail, all the way down to meaningless spam. E-mail applications typically deal with this by pro- viding the user with tools to manage and prioritize mail. These consist of inbox sorters and filters to eliminate spam and prioritize incoming messages based on the originator or subject. The ByName.net service provides a better way. By- Name provides you with multiple mailboxes and addresses, each of which can be dedicated to a particular type of e- mail. Furthermore, these various addresses have a simple and uniform naming scheme, based on the one symbol that is most dear and personal to you: your own name. ByName includes your name in the domain part of the address, and appends various selectors in front of the @ sign. For example, a particular subscriber might have the following addresses and mailboxes: personal@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net office@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net urgent@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net public@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net mobile@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net pager@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net fax@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net emergency@homer.simpson.1.ByName.net This provides our anti-hero with a consistent set of e-mail boxes that he can use for different purposes - one address for personal mail, a different one for work-related mail, and so on. Homer now has control over the routing of his e-mail without having to use a mail sorter or filters. 6 Your home page is also based on your name; Homer's is http://homer.simpson.1.ByName.net. To learn more about the ByName service and to apply for an account, see the website at http://www.ByName.net. The ByNumber.net service provides a complemen- tary service to ByName, based on numbers rather than letters. ByNumber enables devices with digit-only orig- ination capability (e.g. conventional telephone keypads) to send e-mail messages, and provides a unified way of sending messages to pagers, two-way pagers, faxes and e-mail accounts. To learn more about the ByNumber service, see the website at http://www.ByNumber.net. References [1] Mohsen Banan. Lightweight & Efficient Applica- tion Protocol (LEAP) Manifesto. Technical Re- port 108-101-01, LEAP Forum, Bellevue, WA, January 2000. Online document is available at http://www.freeprotocols.org/pubs/biblio/108-101- 01/index.html. 7