Google Talk API Phase 2

John Musser, December 19th, 2005

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Google has just released a set of components called libjingle that give third-party developers powerful new tools for integrating with Google Talk. This is the company’s next step in creating a formidable communications platform. The libraries implement two of Jabber’s proposed XMPP extensions: Jingle, which can be used to initiate and negotiate a wide range of peer-to-peer sessions, and Jingle Audio for describing audio sessions. Here’s the library details:

• base: Low-level portable utility functions.
• p2p: The p2p stack, including base p2p functionality and client hooks into XMPP.
• session: Phone call signaling.
• third_party: Non-Google components required for some functionality.
• xmllite: XML parser.
• xmpp: XMPP engine.

Not to be underestimated is the little clause in the licensing: “The Google source code is made available under a Berkeley-style license, which means you are free to incorporate it into commercial and non-commercial software and distribute it.” [Emphasis added]. One of the killer issues for APIs are constraints in licensing, rates, and terms of service, so this is moving in a more open direction.

The C++ libraries themselves are at SourceForge. For more details see TechCrunch.