Summits, Conferences and Meetups workgroup - 2022-12-09

🎉https://fosdem.org/2023/news/2022-12-08-accepted-stands-fosdem-2023/

its the real-time lounge right?

Great!

And Matrix gets their own spot as usual, yay. When do we talk to FOSDEM people and have this stop

Can we also talk to them about money influences and google sponsorships while we are at it ✏

heh, yeah.. that's FOSDEM

Maybe I'll just go to offdem if that's still a thing

pep.: I don't think we applied for our own booth?

Yeah... I will never give them any money for that reason

Plus in all but name xmpp is the realtime lounge

daniel, is that really the issue. It's not like FOSDEM organizers couldn't see Matrix could also go in the realtime lounge instead of giving them their own booth

Yeah true

istr the reason we're not asking for XMPP is that there weren't enough place otherwise, but Matrix is exempt from that?

> istr the reason we're not asking for XMPP is that there weren't enough place otherwise I don’t know

ralphm:

We used to call it the Jabber/XMPP booth. Then we came up with the idea of doing a lounge concept, to get multiple RTC related projects together, in the spirit of the Realtime Conference.

The fact that Matrix gets their own stand is fine. We can do us, together with the RTC Devroom. I don't really see a problem.

Well they get their name out there while we don't

I think that's a rather big issue

To be honest it probably plays in our favour with the FOSDEM crowd. Most of them would skip the "XMPP" booth if they knew that's what it was :D

As I said, I have a different opinion. And it is not like XMPP isn't getting visibility: https://twitter.com/ralphm/status/1601140303775219712

We also submitted a description which will go on the website which clearly shows XMPP

I think it is a smart way to get people's attention, as per what MattJ writes

Yeah I disagree

Ok

If you want more attention, submit a proposal here: https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2022q4/003479.html

Two days left

Note

“The Real-Time devroom is about all things involving real-time communication, including: XMPP, SIP, WebRTC, telephony, mobile VoIP, codecs, peer-to-peer, privacy and encryption.”

It's kinda useless if it's not a single voice coming from the XSF.. I'm not going to represent it myself

First mentioned is XMPP

Yeah ok sure you can go look at the small print to see XMPP is present ✏

I'm more interested in showing things that use XMPP and other RTC technologies than talk or specifically "represent" the XSF.

It is ok if we disagree, but I *will* be there

I would do the advocacy for a dedicated booth. But id rather not support fosdem to begin with to be honest.

msavoritias: have you been to our booth before?

No. By the time i got interested in standards and community software i was opposed to how fosdem was doing it. Thats why i wanted to go to CCC. It seemed like a more community alternative.

I would have been in the booth there

I have never been to CCC, the timing never works for me. I personally think FOSDEM is a great event, well-run for a volunteer-only organization. I've been doing the Realtime Lounge, and the Jabber/XMPP booth before that, since 2003 or so.

CCC and fosdem are very different. but I never got the impression that fosdem is not 'community' enough

unless 'community' means users to you. it is very much a developers conference

Community software i mean in comparison to corporate/big software

Idk the inner workings of fosdem. But being sponsored from google and other for profit companies and being pay to play like matrix doesnt make me eager to contribute.

CCC strikes me as something more community oriented who doesnt welcome companies or money influences at all which is nice

While I do agree and also prefer CCC, the entry cost is a huge barrier for CCC and requires people to have a job kinda (even though they're generally happy to talk about it).. trade-offs, but I still prefer CCC anyway

If you base your opinions on the fact that Google is a sponsor and Matrix get their own booth, well, then I have no words to offer.

ralphm, I guess that doesn't affect everybody indeed :)

> pep.: > While I do agree and also prefer CCC, the entry cost is a huge barrier for CCC and requires people to have a job kinda (even though they're generally happy to talk about it).. trade-offs, but I still prefer CCC anyway Agreed that the entry cost doesnt help :(

Yeah but that's the cost of being independant

The XMPP Standards Foundation has had Google as its main sponsor for many, many years.

True. No google money at least or redhat

> ralphm: > The XMPP Standards Foundation has had Google as its main sponsor for many, many years. Fsf too. And Software Freedom Conservacy. I am aware. Latter two i dont support. Xsf we will see..

Influence, I can understand being wary of. Money? Honestly if these companies want to spend their money on FOSS projects/events, I don't necessarily see a problem with that. As long as those projects don't become dependant (see: Mozilla).

Every penny they spend on FOSS is another penny they don't spend on their other hobbies

So I'm happy to exploit such offers for all they are worth

Yeah i understand the perspective. I have my reasons not to want to even touch that money. Jlst bear in mind that money is almost always influence too.

MattJ: Yeah that's generally how one justifies it. And if you want to keep getting that money you'll probably avoid doing anything that contradicts whatever the sponsor's public position is, or what they want from you (if they have specific demands)

Yep. And fosdem has been caught doing that. Mozilla too.

I'm happy that people discover free software stuff through FOSDEM, but this is something to be aware of

This wasn't true for the XSF, and it hasn't been true for FOSDEM. When Google stopped sponsoring us, we found other sponsors. And to be honest, we haven't really tried hard.

Yeah not having tried hard is another issue..

well while FOSDEM isn’t for me (for completly different reasons) I'm glad we have a presence there

Yeah i can see how it can help too

it's not like the fosdem realtime lounge takes anything away from our presence at froscon or ccc

Fortunately we have a community with varying opinions, and everyone can go to the events that align with their ideological preferences and beliefs.

Yeah but The XSF doesn't have varying opinions

I don't know what you mean.

FOSDEM is a big venue, whether we (msavoritias and I, and probably others) like it or not, so surely this affects how our community is perceived

It's not s small conference in some random french city where it doesn't really matter whether we show up or not

If you mean that the XSF should not support a presence at FOSDEM because some people may not like _the look_ for their particular ideological preference, then I'm sorry. I don't agree.

I'm not saying it should not, even though that could be an option, I was still referring to not having our name in the list vs Matrix having it.

Being aware that this kind of things have an impact on the comunity and it's not just an isolated act from an individual is a first step.

We the risk of being kicked or something: Sure we have varying opinions of course :) But as pep. said i dont see much varying opinions in practise. Either on the people who join, on the stuff that is pursued or the representation that is wanted. Im not gonna expand more here now though. Because i dont want to shuffle anything.

I'd rather not just be in the fine print

> pep.: > Being aware that this kind of things have an impact on the comunity and it's not just an isolated act from an individual is a first step. Yeah agreed. It should be a collective effort and responsibility.

(Or what it does to motivation in this case)

msavoritias: with history and others in our community to back me up, I try to be very careful about moderating people and have a very high tolerance level. As long as we can have a civil discussion, please speak your mind.

:) will do then.

As for opinions and support, I see varying opinions in this discussion alone. We've been doing the Realtime Lounge for years, and generally have received nothing but support.

Thats part of why i was saying. It seems to me that there was no objections to how anything in the Realtime lounge was done for years. So to me that looks like there is a homogenous group here. With not that much different opinions. I agree that there are various opinions in this discussion :)

Im not saying there shouldnt be support btw

Or that we should follow the opinions that disagree

Note that I don't pretend to speak for everyone.

But anyway i dont want to derail the discussions from pep. point

> ralphm: > Note that I don't pretend to speak for everyone. I know.

Yeah, pep. would prefer us to have the thing named 'XMPP' on the tin. I'm with MattJ that that likely is to backfire. It is likely that we would *not* get a booth that way.

This has to do more with the general perception of XMPP as a has-been protocol. If we want to change that, we should use this _in_ to attempt to convince people at FOSDEM otherwise. That could take many forms. I would love to see a prominent display of a cool project that uses XMPP. Whether that is a game, some IoT thing, or whatever. Maybe something interactive that involves the whole ULB campus, not just our booth. Or a great presentation in the RTC devroom.

Yeah it would be nice to have these projects showcases i agree. But how are we gonna get these if xmpp is not know? And more prominent

> ralphm: > Yeah, pep. would prefer us to have the thing named 'XMPP' on the tin. I'm with MattJ that that likely is to backfire. It is likely that we would *not* get a booth that way. Why wouldnt we get a booth that way? I havent been involved with xsf the previous years so im curious

Because of what I wrote below that sentence.

As for prominence: have you seen the pictures in my tweet?

I.e. XMPP themed pull-up banners, flags, beanbags, and swag. And a projected live stream of tweets, also powered by XMPP.

yes that's what I said earlier. the realtime lounge is the xmpp booth in all but name

I saw. But i agree with pep. there. This can easily be missed by people not "in the know". Even matrix hashtag is there even though it wont be in the lounge

> daniel: > yes that's what I said earlier. the realtime lounge is the xmpp booth in all but name Well thats first ive heard of it. And unless i wasnt in here i wouldnt know

> ralphm: > Because of what I wrote below that sentence. So fosdem wouldnt give a booth because they think xmpp is dead? Because we certainly have a lot of stuff happening. I didnt know that fosdem would withhold a booth because of false beliefs ✏

> It is likely that we would *not* get a booth that way. > This has to do more with the general perception of XMPP as a has-been protocol. If we want to change that, we should use this _in_ to attempt to convince people at FOSDEM otherwise. That could take many forms. But Matrix gets to be just an instant messaging solution and it's ok?

The FOSDEM organization has to weigh applications. There are a lot of submissions and the fact that we usually get a booth is not a given. It is not like they would think XMPP is not worthy, it is more that they might choose to give others a change. I believe the primary reasons for us getting a spot every year are: 1) we've been doing this for a while, so they know us, 2) we try to cater to a larger community than just XMPP, 3) we have proven to be good _tenants_. I.e. we clean up our stuff, help the organization of XMPP in every way we can. So points 1 and 3 are in our favor. 2 is the thing I'd worry about if just branding us as the XMPP booth.

> daniel> yes that's what I said earlier. the realtime lounge is the xmpp booth in all but name Then maybe let's get all the way there. It's not like FOSDEM doesn't know this either ^

Matrix has *way* more mind share at the moment.

Well if we pave them the way.. in addition to all the VC money they get

Matrix has mindshare because xsf and xmpp cant attract newcomers

Plus the vc money of course

To be honest, I'm not jealous of them.

I'm not jaelous either, maybe you've mistunderstood. I'm annoyed at FOSDEM and at this position right here that I read "it's fine this way. People think XMPP is has been so let's not show them we're still alive and kicking"

It is *hard* to promote a protocol. This is why their attention is on a product. As a community we've generally tried to shy away from promoting certain projects in our community over others. I think MattJ should have a big banner at Snikket, for example.

^at^for

I agree about snikket.

Also yeah im not saying to be matrix obviously.

Im not jealous of the state they are in either

And, yes, I'm not going to be bothered about Matrix getting the attention. They clearly have organized themselves better. If you have good ideas, and are willing to actually lead and fund the whole effort, then be my guest. The Realtime Lounge is my effort (of course with the help of many), and besides stuff being funded by the XSF, I've regularly not put in my receipts as a form of sponsorship towards the community.

This deviates slightly but, if anything I'm annoyed/grumpy at Matrix. From the very start they've taken every opportunity to put XMPP down, be it on their website, on every single HN thread, and Matthew always comes back saying "come on please stop with the [lies]" and putting that on some XMPP person. Denying they're even going at XMPP at all. "We're not the same anyway blah blah" (Yes you're exactly the same, you're doing instant messaging like most of our community projects). Their booth at FOSDEM is yet another thing that annoys me ✏

And for all their efforts, I still don't think they are making a lot of headway in practice. But the noise is there.

Agreed

And that's why I am not too bothered. We've been here since 2000, and we will be for a while to come if I can help it. But just slapping XMPP on the name of the booth doesn't change things.

But even if you were to dismiss this, I think my first comment earlier still stands

> ralphm: > And that's why I am not too bothered. We've been here since 2000, and we will be for a while to come if I can help it. But just slapping XMPP on the name of the booth doesn't change things. By itself no. But its a small step.

> daniel: > 2022-12-09 03:00 (GMT+01:00) > well while FOSDEM isn’t for me (for completly different reasons) I'm glad we have a presence there Yes, I guess that is all everyone here has to say. If one dont want to be there, sad but fine. and btw on the discussion, CCC has been called off. There is no choice for this year. Wanna do your own crazy thing? Start over it, I think we can be happy to be there *at all*.

Oh, for sure. FOSDEM is just one event. I also don't think that the XSF has to be the center point of everything XMPP. We have a distributedly extensible protocol, and so is our community. This channel and team exists to coordinate efforts, and potentially provide funding, but we don't have to be gatekeepers.

+1

But it is a de facto reference

Even though it tries hard not to be

You can't really deny that

Sure. I see people in the community trying to add the XSF as a dependency of lots of things they do, and I always try to discourage it whenever possible.

I would like it if the XSF took responsability on the contrary

And assumed that role

Sometimes the XSF is in a good or even unique position to support something, but when that's not necessary it's only going to slow things down

Instead of ignoring the issue

I think it would be nice to define what xsf is for and what it is not.

Of course it's in no position to be a gatekeeper anyway, but it can steer the community

I'm not ignoring the issue. I *disagree* with it, and that's not the same thing.

msavoritias, "the XSF is only here to define protocols blah, neutrality blah", that's about it :)

Btw the xsf site is xmpp.org and it seems to be about the protocol. Not one place to gather, or oni organization of many

msavoritias: we have that defined. Our mission statement can be found here: https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/mission/

So of the xsf doesnt want to be the protocol the website is confusing :)

I see.

pep.: so you disagree with that approach. That's fine. Why not start a complementary movement. We do the protocols, you do some project, or marketing, or whatever. Like Matt has done with Snikket and modernxmpp.org. The XSF might decide to sponsor your effort.

We've also integrated previous efforts into the XSF before. Like jabberstudio, or xmpp.net. It comes down to people putting in the work.

ralphm, thanks for the obligatory liberal do-ocracy response that plagues the software community

"You're not happy, go do it yourself"

The alternative seems to be "I'm not happy, please fix it for me."

It's the same

Ah I thought you were talking about you :)

How do you expect this to happen then?

I don't think you can ignore that I've going at it and doing things about it for multiple years now. Just that I hit walls everywhere in the XSF. I have actually started something else but indeed people and time and money don't show up magically ✏

Also, it would certainly take another generation for the XSF not to be the reference

(Assuming another thing shows up)

Sure, you have definitely tried to change things. I am really happy to you joined our Board and try to effect change. But as with everything, change is hard, and people may not agree with your approach or direction. And then such efforts fail. I don't have the answer. I can offer many ideas: proper getting started documentation for multiple programming languages, a viable Slack alternative with consistent UI on major platforms, etc. But I don't have the people and money to get there. Not for lack of trying either. I did a bunch of work when working at VEON to move things up but that project got cancelled. ✏

Well you said it youself earlier, the XSF hasn't really tried to get sponsors over the years, so yeah it's for lack of trying (not your personally)

The problem with xmpp is not projects or money. Its having more newcomers. Thats why matrix is struggling right now and they opened the non profit to platinum memberships

It seems to me the XSF is slow motion and not much is happening within, as everybody does their things on their own

Because you can have all the money and a good project, but you need a long term healthy community to thrive.

Not many spaces in tech have that mind you

> pep.: > It seems to me the XSF is slow motion and not much is happening within, as everybody does their things on their own That is my view too. Outside of voting for xeps that is.

Hope i am wrong :/

You're not very wrong. But what else do you want it to do?

There could be much more money direct at free software projects for specific features etc.

Features that the XSF think are important, like for compliance suites maybe (I don't exactly agree with that but it's a start)

For any activity 'X' that you want the XSF to do, first we have to find someone willing and able to actually *do* 'X'.

The problem is that in these kinds of discussions, there is a lot of reference to the XSF like it's some entity beyond the people participating in it

It seems to be relatively easy to get your xmpp project funded these days

Well it is, it's the thing holding money that needs more than just one people to decide where it goes

The reason "the XSF" doesn't do many things it could do, is that no person is doing those things

daniel, talk about you :P

No need for the XSF to get involved

pep.: I'm talking about half a dozen projects

MattJ, maybe get a call out there to see if anybody would be interested..

The XSF has some money in the bank, but it doesn't have cash flow. Seeing the XSF fund more projects is one of the things I *am* keen to see it do more of.

Instead of saying "nobody is asking"

But its funds would be exhausted by even 1-2 projects on the scale that NLnet funds

Well we're not asking for sponsors..

Again.

I agree

We're, I'm starting to include myself in it again, I should be careful :P

In fact a sponsorship opportunity came up this year and I dropped the ball on it

Because I don't have the bandwidth

And you didn't even ask for it?

They reached out to us about it

So maybe if The XSF did.. money would get in

> MattJ: > The reason "the XSF" doesn't do many things it could do, is that no person is doing those things I agree. My question is why? Why are there are no people? While for matrix or rust people fall over themselves to join.

msavoritias, it's complex, there's no single factor. But Matrix and Rust are trendy. We had those days in the past, and they're gone :)

They will eventually be gone for Matrix and Rust too

While I agree about this, it's also on us not to act like we're defeated

It doesn't mean we can't still continue on our mission

I agree

I'm happy if we can fix the editor situation and let nlnet do the money stuff

Maybe money stuff could fix the editor situation also :)

I agree that it is complex. I disagree that they have to be gone. Of course you are not always going to be trendy. But a healthy community would go a long way

(And many other situations within the XSF)

daniel, I'm extremely happy that NLnet is doing lots of money stuff. However they have also declined projects that I think were important for the ecosystem.

The editor problem isn't a money problem

So having the XSF as an alternative would be an improvement

daniel, I can agree on this, but that's a sign of an unhealthy community for sure

Money would help kickstart again by taking care of this temporarily

They have declined joinjabber for one. Not that I really care about having been declined, I do think something similar to join{mastodon,whatever} would have been helpful

Meh, I'm not sure money is the answer in this particular case

I am doing the editor problem btw as i have mentioned before

pep., exactly the kind of thing *I* would fund (no idea about "the XSF", but I'd hope so)

Apparently the XSF is willing to pay someone to improve the editor toolkits. But we can't figure out what needs to be done

msavoritias, great, that makes two of us :P

:)

> daniel: > Apparently the XSF is willing to pay someone to improve the editor toolkits. But we can't figure out what needs to be done I plan to include said editor at every step of the way even after the issues if thats what you mean

> They have declined joinjabber for one. Not that I really care about having been declined, I do think something similar to join{mastodon,whatever} would have been helpful Haven gotten into mastodon a little bit recently I think joinmastodon is a terrible idea

daniel, how so?

Plus a gitlab pipeline i have heard

Plus xmpp server choice and ap server choice is not comparable

daniel, it could be

And kind of is in a way

It's not as explicit though

A website can't convey the nuances of making the right server choice

And on Mastodon you pick a community not a server

Which really is the same

You have to abide by the rules of the community / server

(And can contribute to these rules, depending on the decision making process of the community)

Yes and not. Most xmpp servers are more providers and try to be relatively neutral

Like don't spam. Don't do terrorist things

Yeah that's another thing I'm going to break for you, neutrality is a lie :P

But we are not shoving or content warning rules into other people's faces

Sure you can try to be more or less generic

And I agree that the list of public servers is more or less composed of somewhat generic servers. They each have their own set of rules

Which btw I understand why some mastodon communities choose to do it this way

Yeah ap is more public than xmpp. So in xmpp it doesnt matter that much the server imo

Because its mostly private messaging

I already see some servers do it this way fwiw

Wdym?

And yes neutrality is a lie. But it's also a spectrum. And the average mastodon server and the average xmpp provider are on very different sides of that spectrum

msavoritias, more explicit about the fact that they don't accept everybody

I think disroot is on this end of the spectrum

Ah yeah. Thats nice.

CoC are also nice

Yep

daniel, sure, we agree on this

pep.: I recommend you find a suggestion where to apply to have the XMPP booth elsewhere if you dont like Fosdem, instead of fighting this here again

Maybe you haven't follow the discussion. I think I've made enough suggestions

froscon?

And I've also spent enough time working on this the past few years ✏

ccc is cancled for this year

I know

yes, you said so. but i got FrosCon?

So, I'm definitively in to organise something at FrosCon

The discussion was not about not liking fosdem though...

https://twitter.com/xmpp/status/1601310896101490690 https://nitter.net/xmpp/status/1601310896101490690#m https://fosstodon.org/@xmpp/109485571343477590