Hmm, sending mail to standards@ from this broadband connection is a challenge. Looks like anti spam measures gone wrong. But with a DNS tunnel to my own infrastructure it should have worked now.
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moparisthebest
Ge0rG, do you send mail directly from your laptop instead of a server? hardly any mail servers will accept mail if at minimum your reverse dns doesn't match your domain
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Ge0rG
moparisthebest, no, the ISP here is blocking outgoing mail to foreign MTAs.
moparisthebest
like port 587/465 ?
moparisthebest
this is why I added sni multiplexing to sslh, smtp.example.org:443 goes to postfix, www.example.org:443 and example.org:443 go to nginx, imap.example.org:443 goes to dovecot
moparisthebest
evil ISPs only see https
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Ge0rG
moparisthebest, not the worst of ideas. I'm usually running openvpn on tcp/443
moparisthebest
sslh multiplexes openvpn too
moparisthebest
I recently switched from openvpn which isn't pure tls, to ocserv which is pure tls and dtls and *so far* it's been great
moparisthebest
it's not even been a week yet though so we'll see :)
moparisthebest
it's terrible to only expect tls over port 443 to work, but that's how it is at the moment :(
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Ge0rG
Unfortunately it's very hard to configure a VPN service from a mobile device, without having qwerty.
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intosi
*cough* Hacker's Keyboard *cough*
Guus
ralphm: any news on fosdem accomodations?
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dwdlooks at his qwerty keyboard on the tablet.
Ge0rG
intosi, I've tried it once and wasn't quite convinced. It's also not trivial to change the keyboard between what I use normally and a special one for SSH
Ge0rG
dwd, is it a physical keyboard?
dwd
Ge0rG, Yeah. Xperia Z4, so a netbookish keyboard.
intosi
And how is changing keyboards on Android not trivial? It's two clicks.
dwd
Ge0rG, Also, switching keyboards is *really* easy on recent Androids.
Ge0rG
I accidentally used the wrong From on my last standards@ mail. Is a list admin reading here and could approve, please?
Guus
I quite dislike the new default google board thingy. My text prediction suddenly fails to work half of the time, which is annoying.
Ge0rG
dwd, only if you have the notification enabled
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intosi
No, it's on screen whenever there's a keyboard.
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dwd
Ge0rG, Bottom right corner for me. Not a notification.
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Ge0rG
dwd, hmm.. Nothing for me with CM13
Ge0rG
Or should I send a second copy of the mail with the right From?
dwd
Ge0rG, Soft/onscreen action bar?
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dwd
Ge0rG, If your phone has hardware action buttons, then I imagine it won't be able to add anything else there...
It's there for me on CM13 as well. Either way it would be nice if you could configure the keyboard choice per app ...
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mathieui
iirc you can long-press on a key on the soft keyboard in CM13/14 in order to get that
mathieui
or even earlier
mathieui
yeah, the comma key
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Arc_Candy
hmm
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Ge0rG
I've got the arrow keys there, but not the switch button...
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Ge0rG
Somebody forwarded stpeter's weak moment to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411735
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waqas
I wouldn't call that a weak moment. Messages from stpeter typically come after significant thought.
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dwd
The two are not mutually exclusive.
dwd
Ge0rG, FWIW, I thought it'd take less time than that.
Ge0rG
waqas, I found the question rather demotivational and a bit trolling, and it seems to imply that he hasn't actually looked into why Signal is conceptually inferior. Our maybe it's part of some sophisticated plan to Make XMPP Great Again, and I just missed the point.
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waqas
dwd: That's fair
Ge0rG
dwd, at least it made #1 on the front page, as opposed to most of my writing.
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waqas
I agree with most of the thread (despite some folks being conflicted)
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waqas
dwd, Ge0rG: I may have skimmed some messages, so maybe missed it, but it seems like both of you directly answered the "Why is XMPP good?" question, and not the "What are we doing here?" one. They are not the same.
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daniel
I think the question is how can we attract more full time developers to XMPP which raises the question how can we attract more companies (that are making products for end users) to xmpp which raises the question on what business model those companies could have which ultimately ends up in the question on how can we end capitalism which brings us back to stpeters question on what are we doing?
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Zash
I for one isn't going to give up on distributed control over communications infrastructure.
waqas
XMPP is by far my protocol of choice. I believe it's better than anything which could be considered competition in quite a few ways.
waqas
But I'd also assert: If the XSF membership secretly did nothing for the past year or two, movement in the broader messaging landscape wouldn't look much different compared to what we see now.
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Ge0rG
waqas, what I'm doing here is to help client developers improve their clients so that we can compete with WhatsApp, Signal etc.
waqas
The XSF's mission is explicitly to define protocol. I don't believe protocol definition is the key problem in messaging these days.
waqas
Ge0rG: I agree with you, in case that wasn't apparent
Ge0rG
waqas, then we need to redefine the XSF's mission so it also covers UX. Many of the newly elected board and council members promised so in their election campaign.
Tobias
waqas, indeed..i think it's more a community issue than a standard organization issue
waqas
And I also believe that for software authors, protocols are a means to an end, not the end itself
Zash
Change the S back to Software?
Tobias
however there is no real community outlet/representation for XMPP
waqas
IMHO that is significantly more important than a standards body at this point
daniel
Ge0rG: I'm not sure how council or board members can create more client developers out of thin air
Tobias
Zash, or Super
Tobias
waqas, indeed..that's why I've been talking to Thijs and Peter to turn xmpp.net into such
waqas
daniel: I'd argue that they are unable to, given the stated mission and tendency to remain neutral
Ge0rG
XMPP Something Foundation. Would cover everything!
Zash
XMPP Supreme Frontier
daniel
Even the download button on xmpp.org would go against that neutrality
Tobias
XMPP Slacks Freaks
Ge0rG
daniel, what about better supporting the existing client developers with UX guidelines?
daniel
Ge0rG: who is going to implement those guidelines?
waqas
(I'm partial to calling it MIX, and then rebasing the the rest of the protocol on top of it, but that's just me; j/k?)
Zash
waqas: MIXMPP?
Ge0rG
daniel, you! And me. And all the other developers out there who suck at UX on their own.
waqas
Zash: MPP is overused ;)
waqas
daniel: One simple answer: fund raise, and pay client devs. There are other answers as well.
waqas
It doesn't take that much to achieve simple objectives
waqas
And I don't believe the objectives need be complicated
daniel
Ge0rG: don't you repeatedly state that you don't have time for that?
Zash
Start a company, raise all the funds, hire all the people, fix all the UX n' stuff
Tobias
Zash, and then do a big sellout to "non-profit" signal people ;)
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Ge0rG
daniel, and still I managed to implement a bunch of Easy * things in yaxim, just didn't release them yet.
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dwd
I've been saying for a while now that the XSF needs to stop being quite so neutral.
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dwd
I think deliberately setting out to showcase particular clients as being good examples of XMPP would be a positive thing.
dwd
And I'm somewhat fed up that all the suggestions of "The XSF doesn't have to do everything" tend to lead to nobody doing anything.
Tobias
even if it were part of the XSF mission there would be nobody doing it...i mean if somebody wanted to doing and it wasn't the XSF's mission they'd just do it..see the xmpp.net TLS analytics stuff
dwd
Well... Sort of.
waqas
dwd: It seems to me that the path of least resistance would be a sister org, and not the XSF, even if it's the same people
daniel
Tobias: well the xsf could for example make specific client / library / server (as in software) / service suggesting. That's probably not a lot of work. Just not part of their current mission
dwd
waqas, I'd agree if not for financials and legal existence.
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waqas
dwd: I'd note that an opinionated XSF would have to solve the issue of its membership having differing opinions
Guus
dwd: what or who is keeping us neutral?
dwd
Guus, Tradition, mostly.
Guus
dwd: has it been brought up in a board meeting, recently?
dwd
waqas, Yes, but we can address that by making it an awards thing, and/or making it a conformance thing.
moparisthebest
as stpeter said maybe continuing to do the same thing is the mistake
moparisthebest
(remaining neutral is what I meant there)
waqas
dwd: Protocol compliance isn't a useful property. You get into subjectivity with ease of use, UX, etc
Ge0rG
dwd, IMHO we (the XSF) should create objective criteria for what an "Easy XMPP" client or server instance is and recommend those that fulfill the criteria to users.
dwd
waqas, Which is why I suggested awards.
dwd
Ge0rG, No way those will ever become anything but subjective.
waqas
And you get conflicts. e.g., I can claim that Prosody is the best XMPP server in existence, and what the XSF should promote. Other server vendors may disagree and dislike that notion.
waqas
In fact I'd say it incentivizes other server vendors to move out of the XMPP space
Guus
or step up their game...
waqas
Or at least the XSF's influence diminishes
moparisthebest
how many server vendors are there really? 3? 5ish?
Ge0rG
dwd, there are objective parts in Easy XMPP.
dwd
waqas, I don't *think* servers are where we need to be promiting specific cases, actually. But maybe we need to do things differently - a "spotlight on" feature or something.
moparisthebest
besides it's easy to focus on a particular use-case, ie for users wanting to chat I think there are 2 server choices, *possibly* 3, right?
dwd
Ge0rG, Sure. But not many. Don't get me wrong, I think your work here is very useful, and your effort is appreciated, but "ease of use" is difficult to objectify.
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Ge0rG
waqas, prosody has only alpha quality implementations of many features needed for mobile / Easy clients. What now?
dwd
moparisthebest, At least 5. More if you count the forks, which you probably should do.
Guus
there is a huge, very grey, area between "not being neutral" and "promoting a single software application"
waqas
Ge0rG: Yes, and, here, let me add this: any XMPP client that isn't good for folks with special needs is disqualified. Any client which hasn't yet received a security audit is also disqualified. Now what happens?
dwd
Guus, +1
waqas
+1
waqas
dwd: What in your experience is the cost (in time and money) of a sister org?
Ge0rG
dwd, I'm not talking about subjective "ease of use" at all, but about a set of objective UX guidelines to make the xmpp experience coherent between clients
moparisthebest
dwd, I don't mean to de-rail this discussion so ignore me if you want, but ejabberd, prosody, openfire and ?
dwd
moparisthebest, M-Link, Tigase.
waqas
Mongoose, etc
Tobias
moparisthebest, mongoose IM
Guus
the thought of two organizations doing pretty much the same thing does not sit well with me. It's going to confuse everyone that's not a member of one of those organizations.
Tobias
jabberd2
moparisthebest
m-link doesn't strike me as anything an end-user would set up right?
dwd
moparisthebest, Well, arguably, end users shouldn't setup a server at all.
Ge0rG
dwd, and my point is that such a set of guidelines is both useful and on-topic in the xsf. And objective enough to measure clients
dwd
Guus, Again, agreed.
moparisthebest
recommendations would be different for an enterprise and an end-user wanting to run their own server
Guus
(woohoo, I'm on a roll)
dwd
Ge0rG, I agree with the first, not the second. I don't think you could end up with "And therefore this client is the best".
waqas
Guus, dwd: A standards body and what is effectively an advocacy organization aren't the same thing, IMO
dwd
waqas, Yet we have always combined those before. Just that in more recent years, we've largely forgotten about advocacy.
Ge0rG
dwd, not "the best" but "good enough"
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dwd
waqas, I mean, just look at Matrix - they do exactly this combination, and it's working brilliantly for them.
moparisthebest
are you trying to sell to enterprise or people not wanting to use signal? because those are two entirely different things, the discussion seems to be the signal-alternative people?
daniel
dwd: +1
Ge0rG
dwd, what we want is a set of clients supporting the common UX, where a user can make an informed decision based on further features
moparisthebest
for signal-alternative you'd only recommend clients implementing the *new* stuff, omemo etc
moparisthebest
it'd be a short list currently
waqas
Ge0rG: At that point… why have separate clients, and not push for resources to be pooled, and all but the chosen one be retired? That's where things get interesting :)
waqas
That may not be a bad thing, but it's a significant thing
moparisthebest
well the people writing python probably don't want to write C++, and vice versa
waqas
And Conversations is in Java I believe
moparisthebest
yep
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moparisthebest
and currently I think conversations and gajim are the only omemo clients, but many others seem *close*
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daniel
moparisthebest: there'd be a lot of features where you just don't have a choice. You can't recommend pidgin for example just because it has a great ux if it doesn't even do carbons
Ge0rG
waqas, separate clients are good. Having a filter based on interoperability and basic UX for beginning users is even better
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daniel
A lot of features are just essential
moparisthebest
I know of at least chatsecure on ios, movim, swift? probably many more
waqas
daniel: How do you define essential? Are emojis essential?
moparisthebest
yea daniel
daniel
And if you trim the list down to clients that support those essential features your possible list instead very long
moparisthebest
I would think most would agree carbons would be more important than emojis waqas
daniel
waqas: well I imagine the compliance suite is a good start for essential features
moparisthebest
but it is an organization with members, I suppose we could vote :)
waqas
IMHO a XEP based checklist approach to software assessment would fail
Guus
there's no one-size-fits-all definition
daniel
waqas: it can't be the only criteria
daniel
But it can be a baseline
waqas
To Ge0rG's point, good UX matters more than most other things
Guus
heck, most of my work nowadays involves an XMPP implementation that has zero relation to instant messaging.
Ge0rG
waqas, then we need better XEPs.
moparisthebest
but imho you need to cut requirements to exactly what you are doing, like alternative to signal/whatsapp etc, then you can make decent recommendations
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Ge0rG
moparisthebest, so what's the list of recommended WhatsApp alternatives in xmpp land?
waqas
Think of web browsers. Defining HTML is great. Users for the most part didn't pick which browser they were going to use based on how compliant the browser was.
moparisthebest
at this exact moment in time? I guess it's only conversations and gajim
Ge0rG
moparisthebest, gajim is a nightmare. You can't give it to normal people.
moparisthebest
and as you said gajim doesn't have the greatest i-know-nothing-about-xmpp setup
daniel
waqas: no ux doesnt matter more than basic functionality like receiving messages when logged in with multiple devices
moparisthebest
I agree, so fix it
daniel
Sorry. Ux is important. But there are some features you just can't be missing
waqas
daniel: I'd disagree with that. Good UX is superior to most other things.
dwd
Ge0rG, No, it's (mostly) fine once setup. Which is, as you know, our black spot.
Ge0rG
daniel, one could argue that receiving messages is part of the UX.
waqas
A limited set of very polished features will likely win from a userbase standpoint over a lot of badly implemented ones.
dwd
waqas, daniel - You're in agreement with each other.
waqas
Indeed, violently so :P
daniel
waqas: receiving messages is part of the ux
Ge0rG
dwd, which is never achieved by regular people
moparisthebest
so what I haven't seen is anyone argue conversations is a bad client with bad ux, it's always the opposite
moparisthebest
so maybe the list only has conversations on it, for now...
Ge0rG
moparisthebest, yes, and this is sad for xmpp
daniel
Technically not compliant by the way because of the avater thing
moparisthebest
so then you add a nice 'welcome to xmpp' onboarding dialog for gajim, and add it to the list Ge0rG , etc
Zash
The set of essential features vary depending on who you ask
moparisthebest
it's not *so* sad by the way, most of the phone messengers only work sanely on a phone anyhow right?
moparisthebest
I'm pretty sure all of them currently *require* a phone anyhow
waqas
Note that in terms of user base, you'd have a much harder time convincing advanced XMPP users vs non-XMPP users, because of preconceived notions and expectations. Same would be true for developers.
moparisthebest
and those don't really matter, they are already here and have preferred clients
waqas
+1
moparisthebest
no offense at all to terminal clients, but are the people that use them setting them up for their mom or wife anyhow? I doubt it
moparisthebest
those just never make the list and that's fine :/
waqas
moparisthebest: I've heard of at least one attempt…
moparisthebest
sounds rough
daniel
moparisthebest: well if you have categories for platforms you might as well have a special posix / shell platform
daniel
That won't hurt anyone
moparisthebest
not sure you want to confuse people though, as long as it's hidden enough
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waqas
Ha, well, the primary audience is Windows users :)
moparisthebest
the guys who xmpp in tmux already know how to find good clients
moparisthebest
unfortunately yes I'd agree with that :)
daniel
People who use cli clients usually tend to do excessive research anyway. So they probably don't need a recommendation
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waqas
Windows, Android, iOS, OS X. Linux you can mostly ignore? :P
moparisthebest
:'( still agreed
daniel
Isn't windows dead?
Tobias
just ignore the desktop, most messages are exchanged via mobile devices anyway
Tobias
:P
waqas
daniel: with a 90% desktop userbase still I believe, yes, quite dead
Guus
On xmpp.org, should we emphasis projects (clients/servers/libs) that are popular, or active, in some kind of semi-objective measurement (install-base, download, project activity on github)?
waqas
The Linux XMPP space is over-served. The other more popular OSs are very underserved when it comes to XMPP clients.
moparisthebest
because it's mostly devs who know xmpp is objectively superior to anything else anyhow :)
moparisthebest
same people who use linux desktops because they are objectively superior
moparisthebest
so what about at the top of xmpp.org something like 'Download to chat' link?
moparisthebest
that would list currently conversations
moparisthebest
again devs can find their own stuff, enterprise users do more research anyway, etc
waqas
moparisthebest: So.. opinion pieces on XMPP clients? :)
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moparisthebest
sure waqas , how else does a random user find a client and sign up?
waqas
One interesting thing is non-XMPP clients get a ton of press. New version of the Skype client coming out? Tons of multi-page articles.
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waqas
And amazingly, people seem to not dwell on and care about protocol, but about actual UX and functionality :)
Ge0rG
Maybe a good web client would solve the desktop problem for xmpp.
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moparisthebest
yea isn't that what we've been talking about? putting clients with good UX and functionality for (skype|signal|whatsapp)-alternative on xmpp.org ?
waqas
Even for google chat and such, the articles were all about audio quality, memory usage, emoji support, etc, and didn't seem to really mention of care that there was XMPP somewhere underneath :)
waqas
And IMO they were right, because those quality of life things are what would matter to users they were targetting
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moparisthebest
devs care that it's xmpp underneath, my wife/mom just like that it works well
moparisthebest
still if I had just told them to sign up for xmpp, we'd still be using SMS
waqas
moparisthebest: Are devs the primary audience? Or is your wife/mom?
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moparisthebest
I think currently it's just for devs, and there should be a link/page for the wives and moms
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Ge0rG
We need to address the moms and wives, and give them an easy way to get on board.
waqas
Well, the hard question is how do you incentivize them?
waqas
A new client can be hard work. What's the carrot to lure them with?
moparisthebest
because it works great
moparisthebest
and looks good and such, I guess
waqas
Erm, so does whatever existing client they are using
moparisthebest
don't people 'try new apps' all the time?
waqas
Somehow they need to learn about this new client we are promoting. And no, moms aren't browsing xmpp.org looking for client recommendations :)
moparisthebest
they are if someone tells them to try xmpp I guess
moparisthebest
which I used to do but lately I've been saying try conversations, or trying to
waqas
And next they have to think it's cool enough that they should take the effort to try it, AND they should take the effort to get someone else they know to try it (because it's useless if it's just them alone…)
waqas
Now, does any existing XMPP client fit that description?
waqas
Name a single one, on any platform
moparisthebest
also someone good with words, ie not me, should try a quick blurb to explain that it's better because it's like email, not one company controls everything
moparisthebest
probably
moparisthebest
ie federation, but that word probably means nothing to them so it shouldn't be used
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moparisthebest
waqas, how is that different than signal/skype/whatsapp? no one installs those without someone saying 'install X to chat with me'
waqas
Erm, I don't think the 'not one company' rhetoric resonates that well. Though you could get political, and make it the anti-political-party-X client. That'd get you some users.
moparisthebest
I'm under the impression a lot of users have 3+ chat apps installed
waqas
moparisthebest: Signal isn't in the same league as Skype and Whatsapp. Skype and Whatsapp delivered multiple things users wanted that weren't widely available at the time.
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Ge0rG
Signal is actually used exactly by our core audience, and they are better at it than we are.
waqas
Skype has MS behind it, and they've been pushing it for ages. You can have high quality (not really these days…) audio and video calls with it
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waqas
WhatsApp in many areas was replacing SMS (and then platform providers picked up on that, now Messages on iOS and Hangouts on Android are trying to compete in that area)
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waqas
I don't like Skype's UX. I also think Skype has better UX than any audio/video supporting XMPP client I've tried or heard about.
Ge0rG
I've tried to replace SMS with XMPP since 2006. It was hard.
waqas
Very hard
waqas
Ge0rG: And I don't believe you got a ton of help in doing so. Thanks for the hard work.
moparisthebest
I openly admit I haven't the slightest clue about good UX :)
moparisthebest
but yes as Ge0rG said I think xmpp has the most to 'win' by targetting signal users
Ge0rG
moparisthebest, that's not what I said.
moparisthebest
if you are privacy concious and such, it's far better, especially if the UI is up to par, like with conversations
waqas
Yes, but what do users have to win? Users are lazy and selfish.
Holger
Ge0rG: Indeed; if anything, our niche for XMPP federation is geeks and their friends, i.e. Signal users. Those who we might convince that walled gardens are bad.
waqas
IMO users winning is first and foremost. If it ever becomes users vs XMPP, XMPP needs to lose.
moparisthebest
they win an axe not being held over their head forever
moparisthebest
the axe being signal could just turn everything off at any moment, or change or do whatever, and they are locked in tight
Ge0rG
Holger, nope. We need to make xmpp apps easy enough for mom and wife. And then use the Signal crypto nerds as multiplicators.
waqas
Holger: Is that what we would settle for then? Just the user base that case about walled gardens? That's a very tiny fraction of the human population.
waqas
I agree with Ge0rG
Holger
Ge0rG: Totally agreed that we need to make XMPP apps easy enough for mom and wife, so Signal user's moms and wifes will use it.
Holger
Ge0rG: We won't go beyond that, just like Signal doesn't go beyond that.
waqas
I care way less about 'crypto nerds', they are already over-served IMHO, and too prone to bike-shedding
Holger
Ge0rG, waqas: Unless a large company decides to push XMPP like Google did back then.
waqas
Holger: Indeed, and the XMPP community disliked them for it
moparisthebest
waqas, except at this exact moment the suggestion for crypto nerds and moms/wives are the same, conversations
Holger
waqas: Yes, I think there's no commercial incentive behind federation in the current situation, so I see no path to get a user base larger than a very tiny fraction of human population. Unless we escape capitalism (as Daniel suggested).
moparisthebest
maybe it changes later, but that's a problem for later
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waqas
moparisthebest: Well, whatsapp and many others exploded in popularity without having a massive corp behind them. Most messaging systems were tiny companies that got bought after they became big.
Holger
waqas: The community disliked Google back then?
moparisthebest
and except signal they had great UX (supposedly?) first and no encryption
Holgerwasn't part of the community back then, and wasn't aware.
moparisthebest
which points where we should lean probably, even though like I said it's the same client
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waqas
Holger: They didn't participate in the standards conversation that much, and there were some protocol bugs in their implementation that they were slow in fixing. They had also disabled s2s encryption, but the community sentiment was negative even before that happened.
Holger
I see.
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waqas
And I mean the XSF community, not the broader XMPP community. Almost everyone had more gchat contacts in their XMPP roster than non-gchat.
waqasstill has @gmail.com contacts in his roster
moparisthebest
so what harm would there be in recommending clients on xmpp.org for new users coming from whatsapp/signal exactly?
moparisthebest
besides the , well the xsf hasn't done it before, argument
waqas
moparisthebest: IMO xmpp.org in its current form is useless, because no-one goes there.
moparisthebest
so adding new pages wouldn't hurt then :P
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moparisthebest
if I try https://duckduckgo.com/?q=xmpp+account&t=ffsb&ia=web jabber.org is the first result for me
moparisthebest
and the first link there is to xmpp.org looks like
moparisthebest
it then goes on to mention a ton of clients I've never heard of or know to be abandoned, and link to http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/
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waqas
moparisthebest: Most people are not actively searching for "xmpp account", are they? :)
moparisthebest
possibly
waqas
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, I think a page like that is a fine thing to do.
waqas
So, you've got conversations on Android. Now what's your pick for iOS, Windows and OS X?
Holger
jabber.at had a go at it: https://jabber.at/clients/
moparisthebest
not sure there are good choices there
moparisthebest
I don't know enough to say, again I'm terrible at good UX and only use a linux desktop :)
waqas
Useless ;)
Holger
My recommendations would be different from jabber.at's though :-)
waqas
Ha
waqas
What are your recommendations?
dwd
Windows clients all seem to be multiprotocol.
dwd
Apple clients are universally shit. In the case of iOS, that seems to be due to the background apps restriction.
waqas
Gajim on Windows… has it improved much? It was incredibly crashy back on the day when I tried to use it on Windows, but that was years back
moparisthebest
that doesnt' seem so bad Holger I like the little table
dwd
No idea why OS X clients are all awful (to Apple fans, I mean).
dwd
waqas, I don't think it's actually maintained anymore.
Ge0rG
dwd, ChatSecure is getting better on iOS.
waqas
What's a good Windows client these days for normal people?
dwd
waqas, Pidgin, probably?
dwd
waqas, I mean, it's not great. But still.
moparisthebest
I wonder how much Objective-C would be required to convert Conversations to iOS
xyz
Pidgin seems to be easier
waqas
Back in the day I used to like Pandion quite a bit. Then I found that security issue and it was unmaintained.
Holger
waqas: Well personally I'd recommend Swift over Gajim, Monal over ChatSecure, and Poezio on the console. But those choices aren't obvious of course. I think such a page is good either way.
moparisthebest
with something like xmlvm or the billion other things like that
dwd
waqas, Or Swift.im. Although that does seem very marmitey.
dwd
waqas, Oh, Pandion was maintained again, briefly.
dwd
moparisthebest, Oh, and doesn't ChatSecure use the Conversations library now?
waqas
IMO if there's one client that deserves to be revived and reconstructed, it's Pandion :)
moparisthebest
I didn't think there was a conversations library
waqas
It was the *only* client that my non tech friends ever commented about being nice to use
moparisthebest
oh unless you mean, chatsecure for android was going to be a conversations fork before it was abandoned
dwd
Ah, possibly.
waqas
The only other client that non-technical people liked in the XMPP space was the gchat desktop client.
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moparisthebest
the @gmail.com people I know chat on google's web interface, or used to
moparisthebest
not positive it still works
dwd
My mu used the desktop client.
dwd
Not that my mum is exactly non-technical.
moparisthebest
my wife is throwing my sister-in-law a baby shower, and the invites said rsvp to mywifesname@ourlastname.org , and the sister-in-laws mom messaged her on facebook saying she got an error when she tried to visit the mywifesname@ourlastname.org website....
moparisthebest
I guess people with that level of technical skill will never use an xmpp client... :)
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waqas
moparisthebest: She knew what a website was and how to visit it! That's amazing. Most people of that age likely may not know how.
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dwd
Well, maybe, with a decent Web UI.
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moparisthebest
waqas, but when you see something@something.org shouldn't you know it's an email or JID at least and not a website? meh
dwd
waqas, My mother's 70, and can use a website just fine. Her mother, on the other hand, never got on with a mouse.
moparisthebest
dwd, yea she did message her on facebook, so whatever facebook's website messenger looks like should work
dwd
waqas, Instead, my grandmother reinstalled her machine with CP/M because it worked better.
intosi
dwd: she isn't wrong ;)
dwd
intosi, Yeah? Do you remember the command to copy a file in CP/M?
intosi
I do, as a matter of fact. It's POP
intosi
PIP
intosi
Bloody typo at the wrong time.
dwd
Right, for Peripheral Interchange Program.
Zash
Pipboy?
dwd
My grandmother liked command lines because she could write down the useful commands on a notepad beside the computer.
waqas
pip does something else these days
moparisthebest
what did she use the computer for dwd ?
dwd
moparisthebest, Word processing, mostly.
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moparisthebest
ah ok I could see that
dwd
moparisthebest, Although she also did cryptography on holleriths before, so I suppose she had some experience.
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moparisthebest
I'm pretty sure I had the first computer in our whole extended family and it was a 486 with windows 3.1 so we were all rather late to the game
dwd
moparisthebest, I think my brother beat me to a 486, but I overtook him with a DX2 I slammed 40M into. Can you even imagine that amount of memory?
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moparisthebest
my 486 had 4mb I think which was like a ton back then
dwd
Right - most machines had 4, a handful had 8, and mine had 40. Then again, I was running chat servers back then, so...
moparisthebest
oh yea I didn't have internet until like 2002, late there as well :)
dwd
Um. 1994? I think?
moparisthebest
in fact I remember when I got the computer being told about this thing where you could read newspapers for free over the phone line
dwd
Maybe 1993.
moparisthebest
like that was all it was for, reading free newspapers :)
dwd
It was basically for reading free newspapers, MUDs, BBSs, and Talkers.
dwd
But we all sneered at Talkers.
moparisthebest
I've heard of the other ones but not Talkers
dwd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talker
Guus
can anyone help me with getting a dev environment for the website setup?
moparisthebest
I thought IRC was around back then
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Guus
I followed instructions at https://github.com/xsf/xmpp.org, which gave me a running process that does not respond with a webpage
dwd
moparisthebest, IRC was around 1988, and talkers were a few years before that.
dwd
moparisthebest, But talkers survived until the mid-to-late '90's.
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dwd
Oh, that Wikipedia page has a See Also to "Spod". I'd forgotten about that bit of slang.
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Zash
What the spod?
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Ge0rG
Wow. The momentum is gone again. That really didn't last long.
Guus
what momentum?
Ge0rG
Guus, on the ML, regarding Easy XMPP
Guus
actually, I'm wrapping up a quick xmpp.org addition, to spark some new discussion
Guus
pull request in a couple of minutes
Zash
Ge0rG, you said you had some of your ideas implemented but not released. Are there packages one can try somewhere, without setting up an android build env?
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Ge0rG
Zash, yes, apks on yaxim.org and Google play beta channel
Ge0rG
Zash, https://yax.im/i/#yaxim@chat.yax.im?join
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Guus
https://github.com/xsf/xmpp.org/pull/246
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moparisthebest
Guus: I like it thanks for making it more than just idle talk :-)
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Guus
moparisthebest: no problem. Please suggest improvements.
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moparisthebest
Guus: is there scripting that can be done on the site? Maybe randomly sort suggested servers to spread the load some?
moparisthebest
Possibly mention account creation is built into conversations?
Guus
I don't know. I'm not very familiar with the website source code. Just enough to make it run locally.
Guus
moparisthebest: do add the suggestions to github, if only because I am about to go to bed. 😉