XMPP Service Operators - 2022-04-12

Dear XMPP Community, you may have heard about the XMPP Providers project [1] already. It has a new approach to provide a curated list of XMPP providers based on hard and soft criteria. The project also provides the evaluation machine-readable. Client developers can integrate them in their applications. We approach this topic from a user-centric perspective and question what enables a good first start with XMPP when possibly coming from other environments. We created a separate website to present the results in a nice view. That way, it is convenient to read them. Feel free to take a look: https://providers.xmpp.net We put lots of effort, thoughts and discussions into this project to make the listings and evaluations as transparent and clear as possible. All criteria for the categorization are explained on our new website's FAQ section [2]. If you are a server operator and want to add or edit information, please ensure to first update your website. Otherwise, we cannot reference the information in the source file that is used to generate the provider lists. Then follow the contribution guideline to add your information [3]. We will create a MUC soon, so you can get in touch with us. Many thanks to MattJ for the technical backend support and deployment. Looking forward, XMPP Providers Team CC: emus, melvo, wurstsalat [1] https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers [2] https://providers.xmpp.net/faq/#how-are-categories-determined [3] https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

Wait, when/werewas the domain name bikesheded before creation? (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ /jk

Oh wait...now I've opened it... conversations.im trashserver.net chapril.org in D? W t f?

monocles.de is like 1 year old but it's B?

yah, the criteria were a bit confusing to me too

Licaon_Kter you can always review the details why those are not in A for example

(at the bottom)

And also you can check these explainations: https://providers.xmpp.net/faq/#in-which-categories-can-providers-be

emus: > Licaon_Kter you can always review the details why those are not in A for example On it now, yes

Or read even more details here: https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers#categories

Usually, the big issue is, with focus to transparency, that we cannot find this information on their website

So you actually created an account on each to test? Or if no info on website, say file size limits, then off to D with it?

No, we reached out to the operators to update the domain website first

"These providers must have the best properties" seemed unclear to me, several I looked at said they had bad properties, but I had no idea what that meant.

I'm not critisizing, but hopefully it's useful feedback. It was just unclear to me.

I'm looking at the 'which categories' thing you linked, it's what says that

Sam: press show details button...expand provider first, it's listed there ✏

Yeah, the categories page appears rather vague, imho

Sam, yes, you can open the detailed website. At the bottom you see the explanations "Why not in category A"

> Why not category "A" > Shared files are *allowed* up to an unknown size or less than 1 MB > Shared files are *stored* up to an unknown size or less than 1 MB One can see this in their client... ✏

conversations.im is free, so that needs an update

Just to clarify: We created the website from a user perspective. So, most explanations are kept simple to ensure most people understand. Each detail for each category is explained in the the https://providers.xmpp.net/faq/#how-are-categories-determined and https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers#criteria

Why two categories for uploads?

> If properties are not verifiable, they are seen as not available which often results in a bad category. Verifiable properties must meet specific criteria we decided on for a good user experience. Upload size limits are verifiable in the client

Now, how many -1's one need to drop a category?

Licaon_Kter, this is about transparency. I had someone ask today where to go from conversations.im, because he heared that it's a paid service. I conviced him that the service is free of charge as of recently, but I couldn't link anywhere

> conversations.im is free, so that needs an update Yes, but it needs to be referenced on the website. So we ensure transparency and not guessing information or so

Yes, Daniel has a bad habit of slowly updating the site, they had OTR screenshots for years... Heh

> Now, how many -1's one need to drop a category? There is an open issue and we have taken note of this

> Why two categories for uploads? Is this about user quota?

Anyway, site looks nice.

It doesn't say that it costs money anymore anywhere that I can see; surely that's good enough?

maximumHttpFileUploadFileSize - size per current file uploaded maximumHttpFileUploadTotalSize - size of all files uploaded

But yes its a user quota

Sam, it should be a clear statement, at least a hint or giving a direction to understand

I don't see anything on lw.org that says it's free to use

https://lightwitch.org/im-service/tos here in the very first line

oh so it's okay if it can be burried

I misunderstood

What do you mean by "burried"? Why?

I mean I was actively looking and couldn't find that

Since you *know* conversations is free, it seems worth listing it as such even if they don't explicitly say it

That way if users are confused, your website can help clear it up. And if not, it's accurate and not spreading misinformation.

Ok, so first of all it is always referenced in the underlying json file: https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers/-/blob/master/providers.json#L2267 We have noted that and we plan reference to each source.

Yes, agreed, we want to do that way in the future

Another visualization: UWPX deployed a reference implementation how this could look like in the end: https://twitter.com/UWPX_APP/status/1408512845248188428?s=20&t=q1-JCnH3g2yG3bS-KeWTNg

Fancy

there is an API for clients to query the list: https://invent.kde.org/melvo/xmpp-providers#usage