-
tom
matrix is just a bunch of marketing
-
tom
pretty much every reason they gave for why don't they just use XMPP has been nullified with recent xeps
-
tom
rather than fix painpoints and things we already have and sharpen our tools they reinvent everything from scratch and fix the same problems XMPP had to fix years ago.
-
tom
https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
-
jrmu
tom_: hm I got the same feeling too
-
jrmu
personally I prefer IRC over XMPP, I feel like IRC can do what XMPP does even simpler, but I think
-
jrmu
at least XMPP has been proven to work. Matrix to me seems like it's just a disaster waiting to happen
-
jrmu
The funny thing is matrix's main feature -- video chats -- is actually done using jitsi meet, IIRC, which I thought was using XMPP
-
jrmu
Otherwise I don't see any new compelling feature that matrix offers
-
jrmu
So I'm not delusional, matrix is just the latest hype/fad that will die a nasty death soon
-
jrmu
well, it'll probably survive, but will suffer some major setbacks in the next few years
-
tom
It's not a continuous improvement type thing or permaculture no
-
jrmu
?
-
mike
if it mattered how good the protocols were, I wouldn't have lost 99% of my userbase to discord. UX is the only thing most people care about. if matrix looks nice, it'll be around forever.
-
jrmu
the xmpp clients have decent UI. But matrix is going to struggle with scalability, spam, and security because of bad design I think
-
jrmu
I'd also point out that matrix is fundamentally broken when it comes to the command line last I used it in 2018, and that matters for a lot of programmers
-
jrmu
There was only weechat-matrix at that time, and it didn't work well
-
mike
which xmpp clients have decent ui? it's a huge gap. Conversations is the only one I'd recommend to a non techy user right now. Need at least one client that's simple and usable and cross platform tbqh.
-
jrmu
Conversations and Monal/ChatSecure are decent
-
jrmu
Not great but decent
-
jrmu
I personally think Monal's UI is better than ChatSecure for iOS
-
jrmu
as for linux/windows, gajim was decent
-
jrmu
I agree that the clients could use some more polish
-
mike
gajim is a great diagnostic tool for me, it's technically great and very complete, but the UI is awful and inconsistent.
-
mike
dino is coming along nicely, hope it builds on windows one day.
-
jrmu
Personally I'm betting the farm on IRC
-
jrmu
I think IRC has a great protocol, just hideous UX, I just need to fix the UX
-
mike
still need a client, that's where the gap is.
-
jrmu
Hm, for me the existing XMPP clients are decent enough, I just need to submit some minor patches
-
jrmu
if I had to write a client from scratch, I'd prefer to focus on IRC though
-
jrmu
Right now Monal has issues with MUC support
-
jrmu
I hadn't heard of Dino before, what platforms are supported?
-
mike
Monal's muc support has been a bit lacking since day one but there's not much else you can use on iOS
-
mike
dino is only unix-ish stuff right now.
-
mike
https://dino.im/ I'm using it right at this moment
-
jrmu
Ah
-
tom
>mike: if it mattered how good the protocols were, I wouldn't have lost 99% of my userbase to discord. UX is the only thing most people care about. if matrix looks nice, it'll be around forever. that's what dino is for. The fad users who don't think about long term effects of their decisions. slap whatever questionable UI design choices into dino. that isolated that userbase from the protocols. The protocol does matter and in fact it matters the most because It's the foundation of all our infrastructure. even if you've got the most solid frontend possible it will fall over on a bad foundation. Also, not everyone is part of the dino userbase. Some people need professional communication tools and protocols, and if the protocol can't support that than were going to continue to have segreated networks
-
tom
the situation for email was similar in the 90s
-
tom
you had the AOL messenger built for kids and computer illiterates that was built upon email, but was siloed as in federation with other email servers turned off
-
tom
eventially the competition of various other small ISPs and orgranizations and the need for interoperable digital communication pervailed
-
tom
and AOL was forced to end up turning on federation
-
jrmu
I think the bad protocol design will result in some serious scalability and security issues down the line
-
tom
If you want to see the kind of immediate returns on userbase as discord does, all you have to do is spend the equiv amount of money bribing popular youtubers to shill XMPP. Just as the advertisement method was for Discord
-
jrmu
They won't feel it yet but they will have a very hard time crossing the threshold of getting mainstream
-
tom
but keep in mind the kind of userbase that will attract. you could bring about another eternal september
-
tom
My friends and colleages still use mumble despite the discord advertising. the majority of discord's userbase is gullible children. the rest is network effect
-
jrmu
Well that network effect is very important
-
jrmu
That's why I think it's still very important that the XMPP community make it a high priority to bridge seamlessly with the IRC community
-
tom
well then bribe some youtubers
-
jrmu
No, I think the focus is making sure XMPP has great bridges to IRC
-
jrmu
I don't have that kind of money =)
-
tom
neither does hammer & chisel (discord) they just loan it from venture firms and sell userdata to pay it back
-
mike
the network effect is absolutely everything and discord plays that game brilliantly. they're facebook jr.
-
jrmu
Yeah they have some very bad business practices
-
jrmu
But yes we can't ignore the network effect. We have to make sure that all the open protocols remain compatible
-
tom
well see what happens to them in the near feature. either they get bought out or go bankrupt
-
jrmu
remain connected*
-
tom
there might also be some new privacy laws coming soon which would throw a wrench in the selling of userdata bussiness model
-
jrmu
IMO one area we need to focus on is helping make these open protocols more profitable
-
jrmu
How can we let IRC/XMPP/Matrix operators profit without data mining?
-
jrmu
Otherwise without funding, our protocols will always remain niche
-
tom
there are more bussiness models than selling your user's data jrmu. communications is like a utility jrmu. Everyone needs it but not everyone has the expertise, time, or interest to provide it
-
mike
you only need massive funding if you're not decentralised. lots of small services, properly federated, can run on smaller models funded by the communities they serve.
-
tom
I still get paid to build and maintain email servers
-
tom
and there are lots of companies that provide email services
-
mike
"enable IM services for domain" should be a checkbox in a hosting plan.
-
tom
like this https://hosted.im/ and this https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/hosted-collaboration-solution/index.html
-
tom
oh this https://nextcloud.com/
-
jrmu
tom_: Yeah. I was thinking of providing something like a one-stop infrastructure service for open source developers
-
jrmu
like a google drive + email + slack service for education/open source
-
tom
jrmu, like this https://www.linode.com/
-
jrmu
Linode only provides VPSes, I thought?
-
jrmu
Right now a lot of developers are using freenode and that's not very easy to use
-
tom
>loud Hosting for Developers High performance SSD Linux servers for all of your infrastructure needs.
-
jrmu
That requires self hosting though, it's too much work for most developers
-
tom
it's similar to what you were proposing yes? albeilt more like a hosted pbx than a virtual machine
-
jrmu
I was thinking of a github + gmail + dropbox + slack provider where it's just a few mouse clicks away, no programming needed
-
jrmu
The difference would be this provider would use open protocols, contribute the source code back for all software, and avoid data mining
-
tom
jrmu, oh. well then that exists already. look at nextcloud. it could use a bit of work but provides already most of what you describe with a plugin or two
-
jrmu
And probably charge a subscription fee
-
jrmu
Nextcloud has some serious issues I think, but that's sort of what I had in mind
-
tom
the JSXC javascript implementation of an xmpp client for in-browser use
-
jrmu
Nextcloud has the right idea but very bad execution
-
jrmu
eg the xmpp client can't connect with freenode or the rest of the IRC community, and the video streaming is sluggish and can't handle 1000s of simultaneous users
-
tom
I hate that they currently are screwing around with this nextcloud-talk webrtc thing when JSXC is already in the plugin repo, but you can see where it's coming from by reading the development tracker. people who don't know any better talking about "lets integreate rocketchat" type deal
-
jrmu
Ideally what we'd have is a video chat solution that works with IRC, so you could immediately chat with people already on IRC, plus add video on top
-
jrmu
Rocketchat looks good but also I struggled with it because it's very non-portable
-
tom
jrmu, i'd be interested in looking into the IRC situation. I've tried it myself by registering for transport service at the red hot chilli peppers XMPP server, but I'm not sure if their service is broken or what I could not get it to work properly
-
jrmu
I couldn't figure out how to install it on openbsd
-
tom
jrmu, I've been forced to use it and host it for a medium sized enterprise
-
jrmu
Did you like it?
-
jrmu
The UI looked great but administering it looked like a nightmare
-
tom
the whole thing is a pile of crap. there isn't even a native client, it's just a embedded web browser type deal, like discord
-
jrmu
ah =/
-
tom
and the backend is a nodejs blob
-
jrmu
That's what I had feared
-
tom
javascript and backend servers do not go well together. I
-
jrmu
Yep
-
tom
there's a reason javascript is isolated (or was supposed to be before nodejs) to web browsers
-
tom
but rocketchat offers nothing more than the baseline XMPP implementation, maybe even less. the only thing the sets it up is it's user interface, which is similar to the riot type deal
-
jrmu
Yeah Riot has a nice UI
-
tom
what you get with rocket chat is HTTP_UPLOAD, mucs, and that is about it
-
tom
(functionality wise)
-
jrmu
They also have jitsi meet in there somewhere I think?
-
tom
no
-
jrmu
ah
-
tom
it's just a slightly less bad slack
-
jrmu
If only we could have a Riot client for IRC =)
-
jrmu
then we'd be talking
-
tom
who's maintain it though
-
tom
*who'd
-
jrmu
Yeah that's why we need to solve that profit issue, hehe
-
tom
in order for that to work you'd have to alienate powerusers and professionals
-
jrmu
IMO, the best way to profit right now is to focus on providing an open source / education platform
-
jrmu
Since the main people who'd be willing to pay are open source enthusiasts
-
tom
and hobbyist developers aren't going to want to spend time maintaining something they would never want to use
-
tom
so this would have to come from a fund
-
jrmu
Provide a turn-key service for a slack-like alternative to freenode
-
jrmu
That open source developers could use, and charge a monthly subscription fee for storage/bandwidth
-
tom
https://dino.im/
-
jrmu
There's not a chance we can compete with freenode
-
jrmu
err
-
jrmu
There's not a chance we can compete with discord*
-
jrmu
but there's a chance we could compete with freenode
-
tom
I don't going back to irc is a good idea
-
tom
briding sure
-
jrmu
Dino has a nice UI
-
jrmu
This looks good, surprised I didn't notice it before
-
tom
well it's certainly subjective
-
jrmu
This looks better than gajim
-
jrmu
Any serious flaws to dino?
-
tom
looks like computer illiterate smartphone-inteface-on-computer cancer toy to me. but I understand the need for a client of such nature
-
jrmu
Yeah for normal people
-
tom
no
-
jrmu
I think the IRC protocol itself can be rescued, I'm trying to work on adding a lot of XMPP's features to IRC, like file upload, message sync
-
jrmu
There's no need to even change the protocol, it can be layered on with services and bots
-
jrmu
and bouncers
-
tom
using the term 'normal people' is misleading
-
jrmu
hehe
-
jrmu
no worries I understand what you mean. I'm using bitlbee+irssi
-
jrmu
I don't like GUIs either
-
tom
I like GUIs. got thing against them. I use Hexchat
-
tom
but i'm sure you can see theres a major difference in target audience between hexchat, and say...dino
-
jrmu
Yeah
-
tom
https://hexchat.github.io/img/screenshot-windows.png
-
tom
http://mamchenkov.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/HexChat.png
-
tom
such as a major target audience difference in Gajim 0.16.X and Gajim 1.X
-
jrmu
For me, the focus needs to be more on the...discord type audience
-
jrmu
As mike brought up, the network effect is really important for networking protocols
-
jrmu
if we could get 1 million users on open protocols, it'd make a huge difference in terms of how attractive the protocols become
-
jrmu
Otherwise, people will say irc and xmpp are dead
-
tom
are you really sure about that? because we had that before. everybody and their grandma had a jabber endpoint/jid
-
Licaon_Kter
XMPP is used by billions....in some form...but yeah...dead...
-
tom
I feel like that kind of target is just going to mosey around to whatever has the most advetising of the time period, regardless of quality, standardization, security, privacy, usability, etc
-
tom
back when google exposed jabber federation
-
tom
albeit with a complete refusal to do so properly, IE TLS force-turned off
-
tom
what tf was up with that anyways?
-
Licaon_Kter
Gajim is constantly evolving, try the snapshots, it can be made more like Dino if you wish.
-
jrmu
The XMPP that is used by billions isn't the open kind, and it isn't what the open source community is using
-
tom
google of all companies surely could figure out how to get a X.509 certificate. and have the manpower to modify any server implementation to spy on their users more
-
jrmu
That's the big problem
-
jrmu
I can't connect to any of those networks using a foss client =(
-
tom
well unless you got silicon valley venture captialist money to blow up online advetising I think we are going to stay stuck in the AOL-email era. Best forget about trying to get the most userbase right now and focus on ourselves and our painpoints
-
tom
email was invented in the 1970s and it wasn't until the 1990s we got the proliferation and federation we have today
-
tom
right now the markets that need relibility, robustness, and standardization are the ones using XMPP
-
tom
https://www.ia.nato.int/niapc/Product/SDoT-Security-Gateway-version-6.0_711
-
tom
https://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/2018/12/xmpp-over-hf-radio-using-stanag-5066.html
-
tom
https://www.isode.com/markets/military-xmpp.html
-
jrmu
hm, so the US military
-
tom
not just the US military, NATO's tactical coms
-
tom
tactical field communication
-
jrmu
what do you think about the open slack alternative for freenode?
-
jrmu
IMO that could be quite a big market
-
tom
also, on a bit of an unrelated note, something that may be useful to you jjrh https://www.isode.com/markets/military-xmpp.html#irc
-
jrmu
they are a market that cares about security and data ownership
-
tom
isode has an IRC gateway
-
jrmu
ah interesting
-
jrmu
although Isode IIRC, is proprietary so won't be of use to me
-
tom
maybe that specific isode server implementation
-
tom
but isode helps develop a lot of spec and has open source reference clients and libraires
-
jrmu
ah
-
tom
for one the pubsub forums XEPs were mostly from isode's contributions
-
tom
which the military uses for MEDIVAC
-
jrmu
Ah interesting
-
tom
https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0346.html
-
tom
if you look at the example stanza it shows isode
-
jrmu
ah
-
tom
https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/military-forms-using-xmpp.html
-
Allie
DoD XMPP is so huge its hard to use, though
-
Allie
plus the only client is Transverse
-
Allie
I need to check out that other branch of gajim.
-
Allie
although I might already be using 1.x...
-
muppeth
Meh... no need to cry and complain. Everything we need is already here. Just needs some work here and there. Rather then flamewar (been there done that) everyone shoukd just check where they csn contribute and just go for it.
-
muppeth
Conversejs easily by pretty much anyone can be built into rriot like chat even with jirsi as a plugin.
-
muppeth
I managed to rebuild my little community after we left matrix pretty much from zero, and i was suprised when people started using xmpp for the first time and they were shock as to how fast, light and easy it is to use it
-
muppeth
And there is movim which is great webclient with even social network built in
-
muppeth
There is really less and less to complain about. Sure matrix has riot, developed by for profit company so much easier imo, but thats lretty much it. No other client has viop and barely any e2ee
-
muppeth
And since they have a for profit company that understands that to succed you need to hype it up (they are in the startup world) so they try to patch things like using jitsi to solve voip or now some library that is pretty much a e2ee bridge beteen your client and server etc
-
muppeth
Sounds nice but in long run lots of duct tape
-
muppeth
> They have clients that offers features and gives what people wants today. XMPP don't Meh.... its a hype thing. Your client does everything and more. No need to be ashamed of it.
-
Martin
Am I missing messages or is muppeth having a long monologue?
-
muppeth
You even have reactions!!!!
-
muppeth
Martin: was in the metro
-
MattJ
Martin, shush, don't stop him, it's great!
-
Martin
https://files.mdosch.de:64183/upload/7dBm13VkPv1cctQP/Screenshot_20190911-174958_Conversations.png
-
muppeth
So yeah typical muppeth rant
-
Martin
Ok 😃
-
muppeth
MattJ: hahahaha... just got to my stop so that would be it for now hahababa
-
Martin
I'm in the metro too but I don't feel like ranting. 😂
-
MattJ
Martin, wow. Which city's metro doesn't make you feel like ranting? :)
-
Martin
Munich
-
Martin
It's crowded now but it's rush hour so I am used to it. 😃
-
Allie
oh and re: discord, ughhhhh... it just irritates me. I set up an account for the first time the other day to get a transport working with spectrum. I don't know why people love the interface because it's cluttered and horrible to me.
-
Allie
only got one person to talk to on it, but they refuse to use anything else, hence the transport
-
Martin
Ha, Allie takes over ranting. 😃
-
Allie
👵📢☁️
-
Martin
Ha, I really like Simpsons references. 😃
-
Allie
hehehe
-
Allie
I'm not old, but it's interesting to be old enough to watch people just keep reinventing the wheel
-
muppeth
> Ha, Allie takes over ranting. 😃 Hahahaa should make shifts
-
Allie
lol
-
muppeth
But seriously.should turn that frustration into positive thing. Just like others do. You know. Gajim doesnt have ugly ui, it a sophisticated tool for specialists. We dont lack good clients for iOS, we are just careful with adding new features to provide the best and the most robust and well tested and handcrafted user experience.
-
Licaon_Kter
muppeth: good spin
-
Allie
If I'm ever in a place where my programming skills are decent enough I may help out with some existing projects. But I also gotta have time which is in short supply these days 😔
-
muppeth
Allie: thats just lame excuse everyone uses. Last week i reskinned conversejs l. Did not take any skills (i'm lame dev) and if you lokm around there is plenty that could be done. Theming, helping with design, writting posts, promoting, troubleshooting omemo on all possible cients, etc
-
Licaon_Kter
muppeth: link reskin?
-
muppeth
Licaon_Kter: webchat.disroot.org the code will be published this week as we're migrsting to new git instance
-
Licaon_Kter
muppeth: 👍
-
muppeth
https://disroot.org/upload/shWngElb9IiCrfho/VhfryVMiRx-1vnFxI7w7Cg.jpg
-
muppeth
https://disroot.org/upload/654KcwQao5Nc-x-U/-QdUlPNwS4eprn22yixCzw.jpg
-
Allie
muppeth: I feel like there's a difference in working with web stuff vs local applications, though. I can do web stuff fine. Plus I'm still trying to wrap my head around XMPP protocol wise. I've been working on a bot for my own server to try and get a better handle on things.
-
Allie
that is a pretty nice layout
-
muppeth
Allie: but all the others are successful because they dont care about local stuff. Discord, mattermost, rocketchat and riot is just electron
-
Allie
I know. I want nice local apps to use myself, though 🙂
-
muppeth
And since we have three webchats already there and web stuff is very easy entry point for everyone, why no jump in and improve on it so we have aweome webchat solution for xmpp which solves the issue of multiplatform
-
Licaon_Kter
muppeth: great, too bad that concorde theme is kinda abanadoned/broken
-
muppeth
And then the non-lame gurus can work on native client improvements
-
muppeth
Allie: i use conversations on mobile and dino on desktop and i'm very satisfied with it
-
Allie
I still gotta get a web interface to my instance. So maybe I'll play with that then.
-
muppeth
Dont need more atm. I have gajim but as someone said it for special admin stuff
-
Allie
I have Dino installed but it's a little too simplistic for me. I use Conversations on Android and Gajim on my desktop
-
muppeth
> muppeth: great, too bad that concorde theme is kinda abanadoned/broken Initially i was hacking on the main theme but now i want to move it as a proper seperate theme and push it upstream
-
muppeth
Allie: what non simplistic features you need for everyday use for text messeging system
-
Licaon_Kter
muppeth: better update and fix those CVEs https://github.com/conversejs/converse.js/releases/tag/v5.0.2
-
muppeth
Licaon_Kter: thanks will do.
-
Licaon_Kter
And Dino, same issues
-
Allie
muppeth: if I did nothing but msg people, Dino is probably fine. but running my own server (albeit not with many users) I like having service discovery, being able to manage transports, ad-hoc commands, etc.
-
muppeth
Allie: i ise those rarely so every now and then i start gajim just to do those specific things but most of the time dino is just fine
-
muppeth
Allie: which tranports are you running?
-
Allie
right now spectrum for discord and biboumi for IRC, although might be adding more
-
muppeth
Allie: can discordtransport be configured by user (like bridging rooms/joiing rooms etc) or you need admin for that?
-
Allie
I think with spectrum it works like pretty much any regular transport. You can msg individuals, join rooms, etc., but not bridge to existing MUCs I don't think. Unfortunately it's limited because stupid discord won't let you login unless you login to the official web app from my server's IP first. So that really limits its usefulness unless spectrum adds the ability to handle captchas
-
rom1dep
> Gajim doesnt have ugly ui, it a sophisticated tool for specialists. I have few happy users on gajim, they aren't exactly young or advanced on the computer literacy spectrum.
-
Allie
Gajim usually works well for me except for little annoying issues sometimes
-
Allie
or it'll be like "Welp... 🤷♀️" and crash
-
rom1dep
What really kills it (and Dino) is imho the inaptitude of Gtk3 to behave and look well on anything but a gnome env. But that's another topic
-
Allie
yeah