-
ralphm
Ge0rG: well yeah, there's still no reasonable choice for MacOS, I think.
-
Ge0rG
Anu needs another pair of hands
-
wurstsalat
> Anu needs another pair of hands +1
-
Guus
Ah, yes. I was talking to people that were interested in providing those
-
Guus
I'll try to revive that effort.
-
Guus
I've never spoken to Anu, I think. He's not in this MUC, I think. Is he still travelling?
-
Guus
Can anyone introduce me?
-
Seve
Guus, he is usually here monal@chat.yax.im (I don't know him personally either)
-
Seve
There's a comment of a guy called Mark Nottingham on the comments section of that article, and he says: "I talk to various parts of the IETF Jabber mafia about this, and they can give detailed reasons about why XMPP failed. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have learned; we're still building federation-optional systems like WebRTC." I wonder if anyone here is one of those `IETF Jabber mafia` and knows why XMPP failed
-
Guus
Thanks Seve
-
Guus
I do not know who Mark Nottingham is. I wonder who he refers to (and chooses to keep talking with people he chooses to characterize as 'mafia')
-
jonasβ
because one doesnβt turn ones back to family?
-
zinid
yeah, the naming is very important to discuss
-
zinid
when in fact his conclusion is correct
-
zinid
federation leads to a marginal network in the worst case and to a power-law network with too-big-to-fail supernodes in the best case
-
zinid
and nothing in between
-
Guus
π
-
zinid
and yeah, regarding wtf is Mark: https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/Mark%20Nottingham
-
Guus
Thanks
-
Seve
Oh, he even appears as one of the contacts on that article :)
-
ralphm
Grr, dwd, now I have to spend most of the day writing a response to your MIX braindump
-
MattJ
It was a good braindump
-
ralphm
It was, but there's so much there. I am probably going to do a separate response on the PubSub/MAM thing.
-
ralphm
Because that's a whole discussion just by itself.
-
Guus
I'd say that any braindump that makes Ralphm spend an entire day is pretty successful π
-
dwd
I know Mark slightly. In as much as I've had a beer with him before. The mafia is probably Peter and Joe.
-
Guus
if he continues to engage them, then 'mafia' was more sarcastic than an indication of discontent, then?
-
dwd
ralphm, To make it clear, I don't know which parts of that brain dump are hills I wish to die on yet.
-
dwd
Guus, Remember that nobody uses XMPP, except for the people that do. Mark, on the other hand, works in the web, so has a different view of what constitutes success.
-
Wiktor
Mark is the guy that oversees .well-known URI registry, also link relation registry. Not some random guy :)
-
dwd
Also HTTP 2, etc.
-
Wiktor
Also depreciating X- http headers
-
Wiktor
Yep.
-
Wiktor
Maybe he thinks that xmpp should be managed by ietf, not separate organization (just a guess)
-
Seve
That's the reason XMPP failed?
-
Wiktor
No, lack of good clients is a reason xmpp failed. Why this question now?
-
Guus
I'd argue that XMPP didn't fail.
-
Guus
Maybe it fails on certain aspects
-
Seve
Wiktor, well, you seem to know him very much, and my question was about he says XMPP failed.
-
Wiktor
I was referring to "jabber mafia" previously.
-
Guus
but it certainly does not fail as a whole,.
-
Wiktor
I know him because I've seen his name here and there. I don't know him personally.
-
Guus
The only reason why I asked about his wording was to figure out if he holds a grudge, or was semi-jokingly referring to people.
-
Zash
What's the relationship between the XMPP mafia and the xmpp memorial society ?
-
Wiktor
I don't know in case you're asking me. That's why I used "just a guess".
-
zinid
Guus, I think Peter and Joe are his friends, so he can afford those words
-
Guus
zinid good, thanks.
-
zinid
like calling another WG is mafia, I think it's pretty much normal in those circles
-
Seve
I understood mafia as just the people that care about that, nothing else. But I was quite interested in knowing the detailed reasons about XMPP as he says. Sad that we don't have members of that mafia here
-
Guus
zinid that makes sense, yes.
-
zinid
Seve, because XMPP didn't attract as much attention as HTTP?
-
Guus
Seve I think you should become part of the mafia π
-
zinid
Seve, Mark is from HTTP mafia btw
-
Guus
be our wiseguy! π
-
Seve
I will get in there and take all their secrets!
-
Seve
zinid, yes, I realize that now, reading a bit :D
-
Seve
(Although I don't see why they should be compared)
-
Wiktor
Oh, now I found and read the actual comment by Mark: > I currently use Monal and am not terribly happy with that, which is probably why I don't log in much these days. So it's a "lack of good client" problem after all...
-
Zash
The iOS situation is sad.
-
ralphm
I can totally see why people feel XMPP failed. There was a lot of excitement, mind-share if you will, for having XMPP succeed as the SMTP of chat, as well as the use cases for non-chat. Google got on board, several of the other large companies did XMPP (Google, Microsoft Lync, Nokia, Orange, Facebook). Some federated, others not so much. All of the big IM systems around 2008 were ready to federate, but no-one wanted to go first. And then business decisions, not technical issues, undid most of that.
-
Wiktor
Zash, It's interesting because I thought it's iOS where people pay for apps.
-
ralphm
Like Sam, having a full roster of people that then diminishes because of that really sucks and contributes to your view on the technology.
-
ralphm
And the client situation on MacOS has always been a problem, but I cannot oversee how much of that impacted the success of XMPP in general.
-
Zash
Wiktor: Huh. Monal is free?
-
Wiktor
Zash: yes, that's a problem. It should be paid and developed like a normal app (just a random advice)
-
Zash
Tell the dev. "If Conversations can be $5, so can Monal!"
-
ralphm
I want to note that the years around 2008 was a time where *many* interesting new protocols around social popped up (webfinger, activity streams, oauth, openid, etc.) and then 'something' happened that destroyed momentum.
-
Wiktor
ralphm: xmpp problem stems from years of slumber. It's slowly getting better with new XEPs, new client features, etc.
-
Wiktor
ralphm: all of them work over http:)
-
Zash
Well in 2008, XMPP was a solved problem. Why do anything when it was perfect! :)
-
Wiktor
Zash: π
-
Zash
Then smartphones came along and ruined everything
-
Wiktor
Exactly. For some definition of "ruined".
-
ralphm
Zash: I definitely think that smartphones is related to the 'something'
-
Holger
Wasn't our multi-device support always horrible and the problem just hidden by nobody having multiple devices?
-
Wiktor
On Android it got better, no need to ditch xml or rework the protocol. Clients are working fine, low battery usage, useful features.
-
Guus
That's basically the same thing, I think π
-
Zash
It was fine.. if you managed it correctly.
-
ralphm
The n900 had it all though, XMPP fully integrated in the calling and messaging infrastructure. Jingle calls with GTalk/Hangouts.
-
ralphm
Holger: totally
-
Guus
But I'm with @Wiktors train of thought, I think. To be more successful, it helps (or maybe even is required) that people start making money from their efforts.
-
Guus
But I'm with Wiktor 's train of thought, I think. To be more successful, it helps (or maybe even is required) that people start making money from their efforts.
-
Guus
I can at least not see how you can give enough attention to things while also being able to earn enough money to feed your family.
-
ralphm
Wiktor: the problem, though, is that if Linux and Android are the primary places where things do work properly, but not on MacOS and iOS, this affects a particular influencial set of people.
-
Seve
Indeed
-
Zash
The FOSS community has a complicated relationship with Apple
-
ralphm
No kidding. I had a look at the laptops at the XMPP Summit. The percentage of ThinkPads was very high.
-
Guus
Yeah, it amused me that you mentioned that.
-
Seve
It's normal.
-
Seve
But that does not stop anyone from not-the-FOSS-community to build XMPP for Apple :(
-
zinid
> The FOSS community has a complicated relationship with Apple Yet, a lot of developers use MacOS for development
-
Wiktor
ralphm, I didn't get it, you mean Apple don't want good XMPP clients on iOS?
-
ralphm
Wiktor: well, it is not that easy
-
Guus
zinid I wonder if that's true for the FOSS community, to be honest.
-
zinid
Guus, XMPP is not FOSS
-
ralphm
Wiktor: I think that iOS actively hampered efforts to write good clients in the past, with its restrictions.
-
zinid
so there should be no difference
-
Wiktor
I don't see any technical reasons why it shouldn't work, especially with all these "mobile friendly XEPs"
-
Wiktor
ralphm, you mean need for push notifications?
-
zinid
I'm not sure why XMPP is positioned or percepted as FOSS, that's a strategic mistake
-
ralphm
Wiktor: there were no good solutions for this initially
-
Wiktor
agreed. but there is now, and I see proofs that good mobile clients can be done
-
ralphm
Wiktor: I agree it can be done now, but this history made it more difficult
-
ralphm
When my company started XMPP development on mobile, they could easily use Smack on Android, but mostly had to start from scratch on iOS.
-
Wiktor
I see
-
ralphm
I.e. the ecosystem is much less developed there.
-
Guus
(and/or we lucked out with Google using Java for Android)
-
Guus
(and/or we were lucky with Google using Java for Android)
-
ralphm
Guus: and because of its opener nature, devices are cheaper etc.
-
Guus
unsure if that makes much difference. As zinid pointed out - many developers use Macs.
-
Guus
but that's besides the point.
-
Wiktor
Adium was nice... years and years go :)
-
ralphm
Guus: yeah, it baffles me that there's still no decent XMPP client for MacOS, as far as I know.
-
ralphm
Adium was always a pain, but there wasn't anything better.
-
Guus
(mac and google app stores hold approximately as many apps - so the ecosystem for regular developers apparently is not absent enough to make a difference)
-
Guus
ralphm, maybe it's a kind of echo chamber that we're in
-
Guus
regardless, I think we all agree that better ios/mac support is something we want.
- Seve agrees.
-
Guus
so maybe we should stop agreeing with eachother and move on π
-
Guus
how do we get there?
-
Seve
Would crowdfunding be an option, I wonder
-
Guus
As I wrote earlier - I think sharing ideas on how to 'make money' could be a good start.
-
Guus
and, although I don't want to rule out options like crowdfunding, we maybe should focus on those options that already have been proven to be at least somewhat successful.
-
Guus
Identify those options, and spread knowledge.
-
Guus
I've given a couple of examples a few weeks ago - but I think that coudl be done more structurally, somehow.
-
Seve
Is there something about that on a Wiki page or somewhere specific to look at it?
-
Guus
not that I know of (but might be a good start)
-
Guus
I am trying to find the logs of what I talked about here, but am unsuccessful so far
-
Guus
aside: http://logs.xmpp.org/xsf/ seems to have had an update, and no longer allow for join/part messages to be filtered. I kind of liked that feature.
-
Guus
This is what I referred to: http://logs.xmpp.org/xsf/2019-02-20#2019-02-20-5f32e6fa28106cba
-
Zash
Guus: Shouldn't be difficult to add. *hint*
-
Seve
I can't read it right now, but let's start with a page on the wiki and see where it goes from there, Guus?
-
Guus
I've created this placeholdeR: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Fostering_success
-
Guus
I can't immediately spend more time on that, without disappointing customers
-
Seve
:D
-
Seve
Guus, thank you very much :)
-
dwd
I think that the lack of good clients - generally, as well as in particular on Apple - is because the bulk of inward investment into the community is for servers. If you look at all the major deployers of XMPP - ganmes, military etc - tehy all develop their own clients, and do not create generalized user-level clients.
-
dwd
IOW, this is a matter of straightforward economics. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm very confident that the aversion in the community toward saying any particular client is good in any particular way isn't helping, since it removes incentive.
-
zinid
dwd, however, a lot of them fail to write a client, like 9/10 among our customers, which is quite bad
-
zinid
and raises the question: why do they fail?
-
MattJ
dwd: to be clear I don't think the latter point is entirely true. Many of us believe in promoting good clients, just not using the XSF as a vehicle for that
-
dwd
zinid, In part, because writing clients is just hard.
-
zinid
dwd, true
-
Guus
dwd I don't think the community has an aversion towards saying any particular client is good. It's the XSF that doesn't do that, but it's fairly well known what clients are good.
-
Guus
(which, sadly, includes just a handful)
-
dwd
Guus, MattJ - insert "officially" anywhere you like.
-
Guus
I officially need more coffe.
-
Guus
I officially need more coffee.
-
dwd
"coffee", but that just proves your point.
-
ralphm
part of what dwd says points out what I said about the perceived failure for some people. I.e. people working outside of games, military, have seen a degradation of the XMPP ecosystem.
-
Guus
I don't think that the incentive that's lost/gained by the XSF promoting individual implementations compares to those projects being able to make money from their project, to be honest.
-
zinid
well, the federated xmpp (aka jabber) has failed apparently
-
zinid
we will hardly count a million of federated users, most probably
-
Guus
iow: I don't think that the XSF extensively promoting some clients will have much effect.
-
zinid
when for gaming 1M is a good start π
-
ralphm
I have no way of telling how many users are federated right now.
-
ralphm
Or how that changed over time.
-
dwd
ralphm, It'd be interesting to see if such a metric could be measured.
-
zinid
after "stats" XEP was deferred we now never know, that was such a mistake
-
dwd
Guus, I think the XSF pointing to success stories and helping to onboard users certainly couldn't hurt.
-
dwd
zinid, WHich one? I have only the vaguest recollection.
-
Guus
dwd it doesn't hurt. I don't think it will help much, either. Not to an extend that I'd be willing to open the can of worms that is neutrality.
-
zinid
dwd, what success stories? currently we only have a bunch of walled gardens typically with heavily modified protocol
-
Guus
if projects need the XSF to promote them to be successful, they won't be.
-
Guus
I'd love to use projects as an example of how XMPP is successful, though. But that's the other way around.
-
dwd
zinid, Harsh, but not a complete distortion.
-
zinid
I think the only success story currently is Conversations
-
zinid
if we're speaking about "Jabber"
-
Guus
So, let's reproduce that success.
-
zinid
time, dedication and money?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Zash, > The iOS situation is sad. Not really.
-
Guus
but I do believe that more people are making a living based on federated, non-walled garden solutions
-
Guus
we have various hosting providers, which I'd be interested in finding out if they're successful (I might be joining those, soonish, btw)
-
Guus
we have various contractors that make a living from doing walled as well as non-walled stuff
-
Guus
(me!, but I know others that I shall not name without their approval)
-
Andrew Nenakhov
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Yuqyud7otrjAiUNu5
-
Guus
so, I don't think it's al bad as you might think. But, we can, and should, improve.
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, but no groupchat support
-
ralphm
Indeed a client without MUC is a non-starter for me.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
There will be, just not that MUC or MIX shit
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, and how this can be promoted?
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, I just wonder, what should I say to users: use the one with incompatible implementation?
-
Guus
having a proprietary group chat smells like recreating a silo again.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Like maybe new Xabber protocol that is partly compatible with xmpp and not held back by ineffective governance. π
-
Andrew Nenakhov
> having a proprietary group chat smells like recreating a silo again. It's not meant to be proprietary.
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, partially compatible is a bad selling point
-
Guus
(what he said)
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Better than the current situation.
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, better for whom?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
For users of course.
-
zinid
for all users, like me included?
-
zinid
how can I join your groupchat from Conversations, Dino or Gajim?
-
Guus
I fear you'll mostly fragment things further.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Probably. Our new group chat will work more or less ok on conversations, yes.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Without any modifications.
-
zinid
yeah, how?
-
zinid
and what will I see? partially working piece of shit?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
In fact it's already working. Just add support@gc.xabber.com to contacts.
-
zinid
so it's basically GroupChat 1.0?
-
zinid
I mean from my perspective
-
zinid
I wonder how this can be selled by anyone except Xabber devs?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
There is a spec online xabber.com/protocols/
-
zinid
Guus, wrt fragmentation: what did you expect after 3 years of no progressing MIX?
-
dwd
Andrew Nenakhov, What's ineffective about the governance?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
We'll release standalone server that can be used on any xmpp server
-
Guus
zinid I'm not saying I'm happy about that. But creating a third variant does not help.
-
jubalh
is it possible to create a MUC on this server for profanity? looking for a server that could host our channel
-
dwd
jubalh, Profanity in general, or the project? :-)
-
jubalh
dwd, project ;)
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, so you diverge and create a separate standards body with your governance? π
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, I admit your work, but here is where our opinions diverge
-
Guus
jubalh - unsure - but why not host your own?
-
Guus
jubalh - unsure - but why not host your own domain?
-
zinid
Guus, because it's a PITA? even for me actually
-
jubalh
Guus, because the orignal author who also owns the domain stopped hosting because he had a lot of problems with spam and idk. so i'm looking for an alternative
-
Andrew Nenakhov
> Andrew Nenakhov, What's ineffective about the governance? Take that story of extending xep-0085 to send extended notifications. Recording audio, video, ... - moved exactly nowhere in almost a year despite quite pressing need
-
Guus
jubalh - as I'm experimenting with setting up a hosting provider, I'd consider running a service for Profanity
-
Guus
maybe take that out of this MUC, though?
-
jubalh
Guus, yeah lets talk about it
-
ta
jubalh isnt github and a muc enough?
-
Guus
kindly contact me at guus.der.kinderen@igniterealtime.org
-
Andrew Nenakhov
> Andrew Nenakhov, so you diverge and create a separate standards body with your governance? π A great xmpp schism. We'll denounce the council rule and install our own anticouncil.
-
jubalh
ta, for me github is enough. but i got several requests whether we could have a MUC for users
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, π
-
Andrew Nenakhov
zinid, we'll invite you to it. All developers are welcome who want to build something working
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, I'm not interested in fragmenting infrastructure
-
ta
The MUC can be hosted on any server. Just announce it on github.
-
zinid
worst case I can go to the IETF directly
-
jubalh
ta, just looking for a suitable server. wasnt sure if i can just create a MUC on any and they have to accept it. so i wanted to ask first
-
ta
The profanity.io domain should be saved though i think.
-
dwd
Andrew Nenakhov, So you made a suggestion, I offered a counter-proposal that would (I think) be acceptable, and you... did nothing. And it's me that's being ineffective?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
I'm ok with that counter proposal actually. Anything that works is ok. But it's still ineffective way that bloats the specification.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Those matrix guys aren't exactly wrong with criticism of specs, cause Instread of amending one simple xep we create yet another xep
-
zinid
nah
-
Guus
and to fix that, you create yet another one.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Recent example: xep166 that is incompatible with push
-
zinid
the problem is that someone cannot come to agreement π
-
Andrew Nenakhov
To fix it we need deferred 353
-
Guus
https://xkcd.com/927/
-
zinid
and so far Matrix community is in agreement, and we are constantly fighting
-
Andrew Nenakhov
We'll use that 353, ok, but it's not exactly healthy process that bloats standards count
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, how are you going to address those problems in *your* standards body? π
-
Zash
You don't need a standards committee if everyone agrees with each other
-
Andrew Nenakhov
zinid, we'll rule it with an iron fist! β
-
ralphm
Regarding 3 years of no progress on MIX. I think this is unreasonbly unfair.
-
zinid
ralphm, why? still no implementations, still the XEPs have a lot of questions, still no agreement whether it should be recommended for implementation or not
-
ralphm
This is not easy, given what we want to achieve here, and it is not like many people have been spending time in trying to implement it, so far, but a lot of commentary about its perceived non-progress.
-
ralphm
I'm happy with dwd's message yesterday, and will use my day to respond to his implementation experience with my own.
-
zinid
I never said standards are easy, but this must have sane deadlines
-
ralphm
zinid: I very much disagree.
-
zinid
I know that
-
zinid
I see that π
-
zinid
because, well, the XSF is just a standards body, blah-blah-blah
-
dwd
ralphm, I think it's reasonably fair, actually. Designing MIX with a fork-lift upgrade was a mistake we should - I should - have seen from the outset. We also took far too long to get a reasonable upgrade pathway from MUC.
-
ralphm
dwd: oh, I agree that in its current state we well never get a decent migration path, and I thought we made some headway at the Summit.
-
dwd
ralphm, Had we had those two from the outset - so a MIX could be accessed by MUC clients, or MIX clients on non-MIX servers - the upgrade path would have been simpler, and a lot more incentive around for people to move on with deployment.
-
ralphm
zinid: I'm not sure what you think the XSF *should* be doing, but I don't think that attempting to set deadlines to the creation of a standard, to a loosely connected set of people that voluntarily do what the XSF is currently doing, is a good approach. I'm happy for people to attempt other protocols.
-
Guus
I don't think deadlines are a good solution - but I do think that explicitly taking into account the time-to-adoption as a factor of the XEP would be a good idea.
-
ralphm
Many protocols we have standardized at the XSF were one of several. MUC has seen several iterations, so has Disco, PubSub, media streaming. In the end, implementation experience decided what we went with.
-
zinid
ralphm, I'm not going the deadlines should be written in stone, that's way I said "sane", not 10 years
-
zinid
*not saying
-
ralphm
Guus: we already do have this. Before a XEP goes Final, it must have multiple implementations.
-
ralphm
If there's commentary about the slowness of getting widely used specifications to Final, that's entirely valid.
-
Guus
ralphm that's to late in the process.
-
ralphm
Guus: it depends on how you look at it, and I disagree.
-
Guus
I disagree with your disagreement π
-
Guus
but, sure.
-
ralphm
Guus: it is not the case when a group of people wants to work on MIX, other people can't work on other solutions in the same problem domain. I welcome this, and in the end running code will strongly affect the outcome.
-
ralphm
It is not that the XSF is mandating all efforts to go into MIX.
-
Guus
Surely not, no
-
ralphm
So, I am happy to work on MIX, and people that like to see more implementations can work on it.
-
Guus
Well, in that light Andrew Nenakhov s MUC spec is a good idea. π
-
Guus
MUC-replacement*
-
Guus
kindly submit it as a XEP. π
-
ralphm
yes
-
ralphm
I also said the same to the ESL people that did MUC Light.
-
zinid
ralphm, my vision of the XSF is to point into the right direction of the standardization process, otherwise I see not point in the XSF, as I said I can work with the IETF directly
-
zinid
really, how are you different from the IETF currently?
-
zinid
as a developer I don't care about promotion and endless meetings yielding into nothing
-
ralphm
zinid: we are a standards body dedicated to XMPP. So I agree we are similar to the IETF.
-
zinid
you're now EXACT copy of the IETF
-
ralphm
What do you mean with 'now'?
-
zinid
after you reformatted from JSF to XSF
-
ralphm
zinid: I think you have a twisted view of the JSF.
-
zinid
I have a good view, I remember it circa 2004
-
ralphm
Besides the name, the XSF didn't change in direction.
-
zinid
it does in practice
-
zinid
back then the specs were designed by the people from the XSF, I could come, report about problem and it's fixed, and now?
-
ralphm
I've been on the Council between 2004 and 2013.
-
ralphm
And the process hasn't changed, and specs were designed by people in the community.
-
zinid
sure, and there were a lot of productive work, done mostly by Peter and friends, they didn't redirect me to "hey, do it yourself"
-
zinid
ralphm, the analogy: I started an OSS project, but I don't write code, I only accept PRs - that's the current state of the XSF, it was *different* back then
-
ralphm
zinid: yes Peter indeed did a lot of things, because he happened to be payed by his employer to do this.
-
ralphm
This was not a function of the XSF, but rather of a very active person being able to dedicate his time to it.
-
zinid
ok, maybe that, but I don't care that much why it was the way it was
-
Andrew Nenakhov
zinid, see, they support my idea of anticouncil
-
ralphm
So if your point is, the pace of things in the XSF changed since Peter moved to other things, I agree.
-
zinid
okay, let's say that's my point, so the XSF has bus factor = 1?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
I'll raise some more funds, hire you, and together we will rule the galax^Wxmpp
-
ralphm
zinid: but do you really feel it is unreasonable to ask people in the community to put in effort to change things? The Council's job, for example, is not to create standards, it is to assist the process of getting them there.
-
zinid
ralphm, and the whole point of the XSF is now?
-
ralphm
still the same as ever
-
zinid
why should I work with the XSF?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Soo why don't we get the 0085 standard "there" to meet modern requirements?
-
zinid
maybe we will just resurrect xmpp wg at the ietf?
-
ralphm
You don't have to, and indeed some people have instead opted to go to the IETF directly with a draft.
-
zinid
ralphm, so the only your answer is "go do it in a different place" without convincing me as a developer?
-
ralphm
No, that's not what I said.
-
zinid
but I'm not convinced, really, why shouldn't I go directly to the IETF?
-
zinid
or even better, maybe we will move the process to the xmpp wg?
-
zinid
that will be fair and my complaints will become invalidated
-
ralphm
zinid: If you want something to happen at any standards organization (the XSF, the IETF, IEEE, or wherever), you will have to put in work to create your proposal, convince people to support your ideas, find people to give their view on things, and get people to implement it.
-
zinid
ralphm, and? how the XSF will help me?
-
zinid
please don't abstract
-
ralphm
zinid: the XSF is not a magical group of people that just do things on your behalf. The Council is an elected set of individuals that want to dedicate time and their expertise to help out (other) people to create good standards. You could be one of them.
-
Wiktor
ralphm, I think zinid's point is that XSF could (should?) just be replaced by IETF WG and everything else would stay the same (process etc.), so there are no advantages of having XSF over XMPP WG... that's how I get it
-
zinid
Wiktor, right
-
zinid
and the current situation is even worse: if I say wtf is matrix.org - I'm replied "and wtf is XSF"?
-
zinid
and when I say I'm working on the IETF specs - that will sound much more solid
-
ralphm
To whom?
-
zinid
ralphm, to the XMPP opponents
-
zinid
and I cannot use the argument that Matrix is a non-standard body
-
ralphm
I don't work on XMPP to appease its opponents.
-
zinid
but I digress actually
-
zinid
ralphm, sure, but when you have business you kinda deal with competetors
-
zinid
anyway, so what stops the XSF to move the process to the IETF entirely?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
XMPP as a platform is on fire. And many here refuse to accept it.
-
Zash
If you have a business you should spend money on marketing yourself, not negative marketing on your competitors.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
I'm unhappy because I want to create great federated chat products, but can't do it with current xmpp standards.
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: because of the XSF?
-
Wiktor
Zash, I think that's zinid's idea, having XSF inside IETF would give XMPP better position, that XEPs are developed inside IETF not XSF
-
Wiktor
better image* or however one would put it
-
zinid
sure, IETF is an "industry standard", that's pure marketing thing
-
ralphm
I think creating great federated chat products is not related to where the standards have been defined.
-
zinid
general words again
-
zinid
you're dropping some obstacles to make a general claim which sounds valid
-
Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, we can create great products on our own set of standards. Yes.
-
ralphm
zinid: I'm just giving you my perspective. I think the idea that labeling a standard XSF or IETF doesn't necessarily help to actually get traction or success. I think that working on standards within the XSF helps with getting insight of people that have worked on similar problems, but in the end it comes down to people (XSF or not) having to put in the work.
-
zinid
and my question still holds: what makes the XSF a lot more different than XMPP WG at IETF?
-
zinid
> helps with getting insight of people that have worked on similar problems like in the ietf xmpp wg mail list? π
-
ralphm
Yes, they are functionally equivalent.
-
zinid
okay, I see
-
ralphm
Except the IETF XMPP WG isn't a thing right now, and the XSF is.
-
zinid
why? because it's formally concluded?
-
zinid
we can call it xmpp-ng!!!
-
zinid
people at the ietf like this -ng stuff π
-
Zash
What difference would that make?
-
ralphm
You could do a new XMPP WG at the IETF, but I wonder if that would help you in any way.
-
ralphm
As likely the same (active) people would get involved.
-
zinid
ralphm, just like the XSF doesn't help me like at all?
-
zinid
I'm probably not clear enough
-
Wiktor
zinid, XSF is operational, I guess people don't want change for change sake and setting up XMPP WG would be extra work that no-one wants to do (that's understandable)
-
ralphm
XSF is just a formalisation of processes around work that needs to be done by people. You can move the process elsewhere, but you still need the people, and the process to get to a similar place.
-
dwd
zinid, One benefit of the XSF over the IETF is domain expertise of the Council. The Council's absolutely not perfect, but the IETF has only one person who knows anything about XMPP (or, indeed, messaging) and that itself is only by fluke.
-
dwd
zinid, Also, we move a lot faster than the IETF, surprising as that might seem.
-
zinid
Wiktor, but maybe, marketing wise, it worth the effort to move to the xmpp wg?
-
dwd
zinid, As an example, TLS 1.3 was approved in November 2017, but finally published in August 2018.
-
zinid
dwd, and we have tons of experimental or drafts being widely deployed
-
zinid
I recall that drama
-
Guus
Just got back from lunch.
-
dwd
zinid, A benefit of doing (more) work in the IETF is greater visibility, particularly within that group. I would like to encourage people to do that where it makes clear sense (like security areas). Your recent work is a good candidate here, I did wonder about pushing that way, venue-wise.
-
Guus
What is the benefit from moving to an ietf workgroup?
-
ralphm
Guus: what dwd says
-
Guus
Visibility within the ietf?
-
dwd
zinid, But I have, equally, had a huge amount of push-back when i've done this before, with people telling me that I'm doing process for process sake. But I get that all the time anyway. :-)
-
ralphm
So typically we ventured out to the IETF for things like SASL, TLS, nameprep/prΓ©cis, DNS related issues
-
zinid
dwd, and will XSF help me with the IETF bureaucracy? Like resurrecting the WG, IANA contacts? I bet it won't
-
ralphm
zinid: you keep mentioning you want help, but what do you expect others to do for you, exactly?
-
ralphm
zinid: what do you want to achieve?
-
zinid
ralphm, I don't ask the XSF anything to do already, you just said me that's pointless
-
zinid
so I use it as a very slow wiki to publish my XEPs
-
zinid
thanks at least for that
-
ralphm
I didn't say the XSF is pointless, that's *your* opinion.
-
zinid
okay
-
dwd
zinid, The XSF has resisted, in the past, having a formal Liaison with the IETF - but we could do that. That would give us a more fomralised pathway through to the IESG etc.
-
ralphm
And also, I didn't say I (or even the XSF) didn't want to help you.
-
ralphm
zinid: it just seems that you want something different. Faster, or in another way. But it is not entirely clear to me what.
-
dwd
zinid, In turn, a liaison relationship would allow the XSF to do a lot more to actively help steer XMPP work through the IETF.
-
zinid
dwd, sorry, I don't understand what you're saying, I'm not into bureacracy of the IETF, but I'm aware of the XSF's one
-
zinid
but seems like yeah, I need to deal with that eventually
-
dwd
zinid, Effectively, a formal relationship with the IETF where they recognise us and have a defined contact for combined work.
-
dwd
zinid, As opposed to now, where while several senior IETFers are current or previous XSF participants (and often members), there's no formal relationship, and so no way for "The XSF" to do things like request the WG is reopened.
-
dwd
zinid, GIven there's active XMPP work going on in the IETF now, this seems like something we should explore.
-
ralphm
dwd: I think a Liaison is not a bad idea in itself. How does it help zinid, though?
-
Guus
Is it fair to summarize the discussion up til now with "Zinid is unhappy with the slow bureaucracy of the XSF, and suggests we replace the XSF with an IETF workgroup to speed things up" ?
-
zinid
dwd, goot to know
-
zinid
Guus, I actually admit that IETF bureaucracy is worse, please don't misunderstand me
-
dwd
ralphm, It'd help him navigate some of his RELOAD work through, if we wanted to do that. Or at least help us highlight the work in the right places there. Similarly, it'd give MILE and SACM a pathway through to request reviews on their XMPP work.
-
Guus
zinid then I don't understand the reason for your suggestion. Or I don't understand your suggestion itself, maybe.
-
dwd
Guus, FWIW, I understood his comments to be about exploring ways to improve the standards process and the outcome of it, and not any particular concrete suggestion.
-
ralphm
dwd: to be honest, even the Board got involved with his RELOAD work, and even though it might have been slowish, we discussed https://xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/eax-car.html and requested modifications.
-
ralphm
I'd like to understand how we are *not* helping.
-
dwd
ralphm, Yes, understanding how the XSF could help more is indeed useful.
-
Guus
So is the idea to look at how the IETF has structured their processes for that?
-
dwd
ralphm, But I don't think that needs to be a particularly adversarial process.
-
ralphm
No, the idea is that we first understand the problem, before we jump to solutions.
-
Zash
Problem Statements are good
-
dwd
Guus, The XSF's process is essentially a streamlined version of the IETF's, with various tweaks to promote safe early adoption.
-
ralphm
dwd: agreed. And if I came across as adversarial, that was not my intent.
-
Guus
Yes, I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind this discussion
-
Guus
I'm not suggesting any change or solution at this point
-
Guus
I simply want to understand what all of this talk is aiming to achieve.
-
dwd
ralphm, Sometimes, the best way to uncover a problem is to see what solutions people propose. :-)
-
dwd
ralphm, From there, one can explore their rationale for the solution, and see what the problem might be.
-
ralphm
If the XSF (or bodies within) is preventing people to move forward, I'd to like to see how we can help that. But similarly, if people have a different perception on what the XSF does, I'd like to help explain that
-
Andrew Nenakhov
As a developer, I'd be happy with xsf that I could ask, "I need to send recording video notifications instead of just typing", and would be told, "ah cool, we'll add XEP-0499 chat notifications subtype", I say "cool!" and implement it
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: ok, but
-
Guus
Doesn't the XSF do exactly that - likely not for that exact feature that you're looking for, but for 100's of others?
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: why would it then not be ok to ask for a contribution to the document to that effect?
-
Guus
on top of that, the XSF facilitates a process in which you can add specifications for the feature that you're missing in such a way that it can be adopted by everyone that's interested.
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: do I understand correctly that you expect the XSF to whip up a spec for a suggestion for something like this?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
That would be more of what I would expect of a standards body. Maybe after a discussion.
-
Guus
Isn't that _exactly_ what the XSF does?
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: I'm asking because indeed that kinda happened before. People would suggest things, and Peter would go and create a spec for it as Author, and submit it to, well, himself as Editor, and then get it to Council, where he'd (also) vote on it.
-
zinid
ralphm, eax-car is actually would be a very good help from the XSF, but I was asked to do moar bureaucracy, and to spend several weeks forming business rules of CA coordination, which I can only copy from the CA/B Forum's requirements. So even here useless. And that's absolutely not for RELOAD, I described it in details in my email, but still nobody reads
-
zinid
whatever
-
Guus
you supply a suggestion (in the form of a XEP). The XSF discusses it. It gets published.
-
zinid
ralphm, I decided not to work on the XEP. Let it be just random collections of CA certificates on every client
-
ralphm
zinid: well, it would have been great that have given that feedback after our meeting. This is the first I hear about you not being happy about what we discussed.
-
zinid
and my EAX technical XEPs I will discuss with the Council
-
Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, yes, what you describe about Peter would make me more happy that necessity to write own XEP. I can probably do that and will do that in the future, if it's necessary.
-
Guus
zinid, if you think that any feedback that we give is pointless, yeah, then I can see how that frustrates you.
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: ok, so then indeed it seems to be an expectance mismatch. The XSF does not create new XEPs. It adopts them and manages the process of making it a good protocol by using the expertise of the Standards JIG (basically everyone in the XMPP interested in standards, on the standards mailinglist) under the guidance of the Editor and Council. So indeed we currently *do* expect people to write XEPs themselves.
-
Guus
I for one, think it offers value - yes, it slows things down, but it will also prevent issues down the road.
-
zinid
> So indeed we currently *do* expect people to write XEPs themselves. And the incentives?
-
ralphm
zinid: I agree with Guus, and I think it is reasonable to write up details on what you expect the XSF to do in practice, before asking it do it.
-
Guus
I'm out for a dentist appointment.
-
zinid
also, regarding my "frustration", I can work with the Council, it's not pointless, but the whole XSF with its board is useless, sorry
-
ralphm
zinid: people have different incentives to write specfications, and then also for submitting them to a standards body. This is up to you. I can only comment on what we then will attempt to facilitate.
-
ralphm
zinid: the Council is the most important part of the XSF indeed. The Board is primarily there for having a legal structure to do our work in, regarding funding of resources (like website, mailinglists), having a process for electing the Council from a membership, and facilitating events like the Summit.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, actually this situation is kinda uneven. We write software , we write XEPs, and then XSF will decide if it's accepted or not. Kinda not cool.
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, +1
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: there is *no* requirement to have your extensions approved by the XSF before you can use them.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
If all xsf does is approval, maybe we can join efforts with zinid and have our own anticouncil. ?
-
zinid
ralphm, thus we will have his non-standard imlementation, great
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, I'm not going into anticouncil!!! π
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, even working with IETF turtle would be much less effort
-
ralphm
zinid: so either you work with a standards body, and then have a document vetted by hopefully more people, or you don't. Also, a standard is only a standard if it is used by multiple parties, not if we rubberstamp it.
-
zinid
ralphm, I got your point, yes, clearly
-
zinid
I just disagree
-
Zash
Being published by the XSF doesn't force anyone else to implement it.
-
ralphm
zinid: so what *do* you expect then?
-
zinid
ralphm, the DIRECTION
-
zinid
what's the decision on MIX? should we stop accepting hacks and patches to MUC?
-
zinid
because the XSF is supposed to be clever, it should analyze current adoption and decide
-
ralphm
zinid: it seems that MIX is not in a place where it could replace MUC. There are a few people that have slowly started working on implementations (my team, isode, dwd), and there's probably still work to do.
-
zinid
ralphm, good to hear you started, I finished already π
-
Zash
Having Someoneβ’ with a vision and enough energy to be driving would be good, but hard to produce in a volonteer based org.
-
zinid
Zash, then no point pretending?
-
ralphm
My personal opinion is that there are a lot of good things in there, but it is lacking in a proper upgrade path, unclear in some areas (that e.g. dwd has pointed out yesterday).
-
zinid
in my book, the best the XSF can do is to move process to the IETF
-
zinid
for example to help me working with the IETF
-
zinid
(since you asked what help I wanted)
-
zinid
it's not solely because of me of course, before you start ranting π
-
zinid
moving to the XSF will bring more recognition to the XSF and XMPP
-
zinid
currently XSF is like "who is it?"
-
ralphm
zinid: I'm sad about you feeling I'm ranting. I'm trying to help understand what issues you have with the XSF, the Board, or me.
-
ralphm
zinid: I have seen some epressions of frustration by you and Andrew Nenakhov over the last few months, and I thought this was as good time as any to see if I can get it resolved.
-
zinid
so I suggested the solution
-
zinid
I will have zero complaints then
-
ralphm
zinid: if your suggestion is closing up shop and moving to the IETF, I'm not sure how that is constructive.
-
zinid
I will just work within WG discussing technical stuff
-
zinid
ralphm, marketing wise
-
ralphm
I don't see the marketing angle at all.
-
zinid
ralphm, okay
-
zinid
I think you just don't want to see, I understand that you like all this XSF community around you, and you're the chair
-
ralphm
I.e. I don't see how it helps you that the rubberstamp is from the IETF rather than the XSF. Who would actually care about this, and is this really a problem we need to address?
-
ralphm
zinid: well, I like the community, I don
-
ralphm
't care that I am the Chair. I'm happy that I can help the community in that role.
-
ralphm
If if the reverse isn't true, I'd do other stuff
-
ralphm
Like help out with Council, or the Editors
-
zinid
my customers actually care, because when I say we support "industry standard" we're lying, XSF is not accepted as a standards body, unlike IETF
-
Zash
Why are you here then?
-
zinid
nice question π
-
zinid
sorry for disturbing your bubble
-
ralphm
zinid: for all things XMPP, I'd say we've been generally accepted as the body that defines its "industry standards".
-
ralphm
It is not like there's a vote on which standards bodies are 'real' or not.
-
zinid
marketing wise there is
-
ralphm
zinid: so if the IETF would say: for all your XMPP business go to the XSF, it would help?
-
zinid
who will read what they say? the customers will read I E T F.
-
zinid
means no vendor lock-in, good
-
Zash
The IETF doesn't make standards. Everyone using the specifications is what makes it into standards.
-
zinid
> The mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.
-
ralphm
yeah, also the IETF allows for publishing drafts outside of WGs that are not really vetted
-
ralphm
βThe XMPP Standards Foundation (also known as the XSF and formerly the Jabber Software Foundation) is an independent, nonprofit standards development organisation whose primary mission is to define open protocols for presence, instant messaging, and real-time communication and collaboration on top of the IETFβs Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP).β
-
Zash
XMPP is an IETF standard, but you can still build lock-in, not federeate etc.
-
zinid
Zash, are we talking about marketing here?
-
zinid
or do you think I don't know what you're saying?
-
Zash
Are we?
-
zinid
I can write in my facebook blog "I create standards", does it count?
-
zinid
Zash, well, yes, we're talking about marketing until you chimed it
-
zinid
asking me stupid question about "why I'm here"
-
Zash
Ignore me then
-
Guus
XMPP is an IETF standard. Us acting as a IETF workgroup would not add much on top of that in the sense of marketable exposure.
-
ralphm
zinid: also note that RFC 6120 points to the XSF in several places, like section 8.4, that among other things says: βAn extension element or extension attribute is said to be "extended content" and the qualifying namespace for such an element or attribute is said to be an "extended namespace". Informational Note: Although extended namespaces for XMPP are commonly defined by the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) and by the IETF, no specification or IETF standards action is necessary to define extended namespaces, and any individual or organization is free to define XMPP extensions.β
-
zinid
okay, you disagree with everything I say, I disagree with everything you say, we should probably stop here
-
ralphm
zinid: so you can write "I develop protocols" on facebook. Whether they become standards, is to be seen. As I mentioned before, a specification becomes a standard because of being used by multiple parties, not because of the rubberstamps on it.
-
ralphm
zinid: I'm sorry about that. Thanks for taking the time to explain your point of view, though.
-
Ge0rG
I agree that it would be great to have a better documented common vision of where xmpp is moving, and it would be great to have council members working full time on xmpp. Unfortunately, the latter is not going to happen.
-
Zash
I believe someone said that the council was more active in the past, rather than just voting on things
-
Ge0rG
Yes. And having council members being paid for that task immediately brings up conflicts of interest.
-
ralphm
Zash: I don't feel that the Council is now less productive than when I was on it (for 8 years).
-
ralphm
I'd love people being payed by their employer to be able to spend time on the volunteer efforts in the various roles at the XSF.
-
Zash
That's mostly how the IETF works
-
ralphm
It is how all standards bodies work.
-
ralphm
Although, of course, some of them have entry fees for organizations to be able to participate.
-
Zash
Our Summits are notoriously cheap compared to the ETFs :)✎ -
Zash
Our Summits are notoriously cheap compared to the IETFs :) ✏
-
zinid
and the outcome of your meetings?
-
ralphm
And less humming
-
zinid
drinking beer? I'm not against beer, but that's probably not the goal
-
ralphm
zinid: I found our meeting useful, and just assuming we just drunk beer is not a very good argument.
-
Zash
There's beer at IETF meetings too
-
zinid
ralphm, useful? I don't know, where to read about that?
-
zinid
just my voice from the floor
-
ralphm
zinid: we even allowed people to remotely participate.
-
zinid
that's impressive π
-
Andrew Nenakhov
On the positive side: we have working calls on iOS. Can so done at XSF resurrect xep-353? 0166 doesn't cut it.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
*can someone
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, nobody can, do it yourself or GTFO
-
zinid
that's the official position
-
Andrew Nenakhov
But it's in deferred state
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, take the authorship
-
ralphm
zinid: I'd have loved you to have been there, physically or remotely.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
I assume it's the council that moves XEPs between states?
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: we've recently made a change to XEP-0001 to deal with orphaned specs.
-
zinid
Andrew Nenakhov, yes, because the author's inactivity, so it requires new authorship to move it back
-
ralphm
zinid: it *doesn't*
-
zinid
ralphm, so you changed that?
-
Andrew Nenakhov
zinid, actually I'd rather change 0166 than support 0353
-
ralphm
zinid: yes, I actually wrote the text for it.
-
zinid
okay, I misread that
-
Zash
Andrew Nenakhov: Is 0353 in need of anything specific or could it be advanced as-is?
-
ralphm
zinid: but we do require someone to help guide it through the process of proposing it as Draft in case the author has abandoned it: the Document Shepherd.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Zash, my developer says he did everything as is in 0353, so it's probably good to use
-
ralphm
zinid: the first step, in case of XEP-0353 would be to contact fippo or stpeter. Sending a message to the standards list would be good first step.
-
ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: for what it is worth, we did it slightly differently, with IQs, which required server support. Even if we don't end up doing it like XEP-0353 says, there's clearly a need for a solution.
-
Zash
Andrew Nenakhov: If they have any feedback then that would be good to share with the list. Even if it's just "It's fine, it could made Draft"
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Ok.
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: what we found is that you want to indeed share the session-initiate to all the resources, and then define how accepting the session works (there might be two resources sending a response).
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ralphm
The problem with XEP-0353 doesn't do that, it precedes the process.
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ralphm
So you get more roundtrip.
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ralphm
Instead, if you somehow got the payload of the session-initiate to all resources, they could already start doing things, like setting up a session with a TURN server, or something.
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Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, we don't think that two resources sending a response is a big problem. User can't answer a call from tablet and pnohe at once. And even if he does , second device will get 'line busy' answer, I think
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ralphm
Sure, but it would need to be defined.
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ralphm
I just spoke to a colleague and he mentioned that in a previous project they actually 'just' replaced the initial iq for a session-initiate with a message to the bare JID.
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Zash
ralphm: Do you do anything so that a currently offline client can later see what calls were made? Eg missed calls while being offline seems like a useful feature.
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ralphm
And then had some kind of conflict resolution.
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ralphm
Zash: yes, separately
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ralphm
Zash: we have this concept of CDR messages (Call Detail Record) to alert all resources of the result of a session.
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Zash
This seems like something you'd get partially by using messages for initial setup.
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ralphm
https://ralphm.net/publications/xmpp_chat_voip/#/6/5
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ralphm
The CDRs are after the fact.
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ralphm
That is after the call has been terminated in one way or the other.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Zash, If calls are initiated by a message they'll be in message archive, I guess
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ralphm
But you want other clients to know which resource accepted the session-initiate.
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Zash
Yes. But a proper CDR would include whether it was answered and how long the call was.
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Andrew Nenakhov
True.
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ralphm
Zash: indeed, as in my example
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ralphm
We didn't get to propose this to the XSF.
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Zash
ralphm: That's from the presentation you gave at the Summit right?
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Zash
Server-assisted Jingle does seem in line with the routing changes proposed.
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ralphm
Zash: yes
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ralphm
Zash: well, yes and no. Our implementation was server assisted, but I'm unsure if that's ideal.
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ralphm
Again because of the deployment issues (not unlike MIX)
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Zash
353 + MAM could get you some of it.
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ralphm
I don't think XEP-0353 is the right approach though, because it precedes the actual initiation.
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ralphm
So a client knows it has a call, but cannot setup anything yet, because he doesn't yet have the details of the call.
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Zash
Hm, and it has some overlap with SIMS
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ralphm
Zash: how so?
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Zash
In the abstract "Jingle initiaded via <message>" sorta way.
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ralphm
oh
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Zash
SIMS as in https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0385.html
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Andrew Nenakhov
I actually think SIMS is a very bad idea
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Andrew Nenakhov
Like yet another markup language for year 2019
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ralphm
Well, we used SIMS for sharing media in our app.
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moparisthebest
I don't *think* you are talking about SIMS Andrew Nenakhov ?
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ralphm
I don't see it as another markup, but more as a format to describe a shared image, video, audio thing.
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moparisthebest
Andrew Nenakhov, I *think* you are talking about https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0394.html Message Markup
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moparisthebest
?
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ralphm
We used it without the begin/end attributes on the reference container, though.
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Zash
I see it as reusing the Jingle FT descriptor in
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Zash
... a message
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ralphm
So if the objection is on that wrapper, I think that's worth discussing.
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Zash
I can understand that it looks a lot bigger than OOB that's used currently with http upload, but it allows some nice things.
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ralphm
Those extra things were essential in building something similar to sharing media as for example WhatsApp.
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ralphm
Particularly thumbnails, and caption.
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ralphm
I think they ended up not really using the hashes for caching, although I still think they should have.
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Andrew Nenakhov
moparisthebest, SIMS is using references
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Andrew Nenakhov
<reference xmlns='urn:xmpp:reference:0' begin='17' end='20' type='data'>
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Andrew Nenakhov
Pretty much a very ugly markup language to me
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: first of all, you don't actually have to use the begin/end attributes, and just included it as some kind of attachment.
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ralphm
Second, the idea of References came from how Twitter allows for marking up Tweets in their API.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Twitter did a number of changes to how they mark up their messages
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ralphm
Particularly useful for marking up @mentions, #hash, links, etc. in a plain-text string. Potentially after the fact.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Currently any images now are expempt from 280 char limit, they are just "added"
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ralphm
(much like how Slack sends a separate message when you submit a plain-text message to highlight stuff)
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Andrew Nenakhov
I'd rather resurrect xep-0071 :-/
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about this: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/data-dictionary/overview/entities-object.html
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: sure, there are pros and cons.
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ralphm
But XEP-0071 didn't allow for marking up the stuff I mentioned above in much the same way.
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ralphm
At least not semantically.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Well at least you don't use JSON π
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Andrew Nenakhov
I'll think about 385.
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ralphm
With References you can say: "this bit here is a hashtag, and here is a link to something useful to do with that"
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Andrew Nenakhov
I'm not entirely happy with 221 xep modification we currently is to share media files
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Andrew Nenakhov
https://xmpp.redsolution.com/upload/4bddf4f264f5c6577f16551f16a0abdf3f7ff84d/TKd1DfB6/IMG_20190228_161844266.jpg https://xmpp.redsolution.com/upload/4bddf4f264f5c6577f16551f16a0abdf3f7ff84d/1cjpVG7c/images_2_.jpg https://xmpp.redsolution.com/upload/4bddf4f264f5c6577f16551f16a0abdf3f7ff84d/FFCwhXmN/IMG_20190303_163919048.jpg
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ralphm
Or: "this piece of text really is a think that can be interpreted as a custom emoji, and here is a link to a thumbnail to replace it with when rendering on a device that can show arbitrary images (unlike, say, a console client).
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Yagiza
Andrew Nenakhov, why resurrecting XEP-0071 instead of improving XEP-0393?
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ralphm
Yagiza: for what it is worth, XEP-0393 doesn't resolve this issue of References, but they can work side-by-side.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Yagiza, because 393 is silly bad horrible idea
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Yagiza
Andrew Nenakhov, ok, XEP-0394, of course.
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: why? It just documents some convention on how people *already* markup their plain-text.
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Yagiza
ralphm, so, why it's a standards track, not informational or historical in that case?
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ralphm
Yagiza: ah, yes, that _is_ similar to References.
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ralphm
Yagiza: valid question, maybe because it also tells clients how they can interpret it, which is something that is not that widespread.
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ralphm
I.e. the difference between what users type, and what clients show.
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Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, because markdown is a method of WYSINWYG editing, a means to encode html in a more human readable way. It is not supposed to be passed as markdown markuped text, it is supposed to be rendered into html
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Zash
Nothing is perfect in this area
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ralphm
Zash: right
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Andrew Nenakhov
So if you format with markdown, you render html and send HTML
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: well, outside of XMPP there are so many uses of Markdown contrary to your point, that I'm not even sure where to begin.
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Zash
393 isn't Markdown tho
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ralphm
People even write books with markdown files as the the source
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ralphm
Zash: and that
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Yagiza
Andrew Nenakhov, anyway, sending HTML version of the text along with plain text is much worse idea, than sending formatting along with the text.
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Yagiza
ralphm, so, why XEP-0245 is informational, but XEP-0393 is standards track?
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Andrew Nenakhov
ralphm, I've seen services where you enter html formatted table and they render a markdown formatted table. Existence of such services doesn't prove anything about markdown but that the creators of service apparently forgot that you can use html to format tables directly in markdown.
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Zash
ralphm: Unfortunately often mistaken for Markdown tho, which produces the same problem XHTML-IM has, due to HTML-passtrough being a feature of many markdown libraries
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Andrew Nenakhov
Zash, > 393 isn't Markdown tho Uglier, yes. Same principle, though.
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Zash
Andrew Nenakhov: Roughtly what people have been using in plain text email since before I was born. Probably.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Why, if we have html, for, like, 30 years?
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Yagiza
Andrew Nenakhov, XEP-0393 is just another LML description.
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ralphm
Yagiza: XEP-0245, which documents /me, is about specifying how the markup *and* implementation have been done historically. The use of /me predates XMPP, and by the time this spec was submitted, all clients already did this.
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Yagiza
ralphm, so, why it is not hystorical?
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ralphm
I don't remember
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ralphm
Yagiza: oh wait
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ralphm
Yagiza: historical is for things from before we had a JEP/XEP process. I suppose it could have been historical. But it is probably Informational because it is more a best-practice kind of thing.
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ralphm
I think it could have gone either way.
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Yagiza
ralphm, so, why XEP-0393 is not a best-practice of LML implementation in XMPP client software?
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ralphm
Yeah, I can see the argument for it being informational instead.
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Guus
back. No cavities! π
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ralphm
Guus: good for you
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ralphm
π
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Andrew Nenakhov
Btw a question on 385 Sims. If I share 5 images, what's fallback behavior? It doesn't look like I can put urls to 5 shared images in <body>
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ralphm
Our client sent 5 images as 5 separate messages
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ralphm
But it is a good question.
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Andrew Nenakhov
> Our client sent 5 images as 5 separate messages We decided against such approach.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Because when we send several items we want them to be presented as nice gallery of images
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ralphm
It flowed naturally from our product team's requirements, so that was convenient.
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ralphm
Right.
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Andrew Nenakhov
And if they are separate there are weird effects when loading from message archive
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ralphm
Well, if the gallery also has some kind of web presence, you might be able to link to that instead.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Like we've loaded 5 most recent of 10 and gallery looks kinda broken
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ralphm
otherwise, I see no real alternative to include links to all images
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Andrew Nenakhov
See above.
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ralphm
Maybe I misunderstood, but other than it not being appealing visually, why couldn't you include 5 links in the body?
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Andrew Nenakhov
Currently we use data forms media element xep 0221 that allows us to pass metadata like size, video duration, etc, and duplicate links in body
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ralphm
I'm not too familiar with XEP-0221, but I remember not being a fan when I voted on it in Council.
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Andrew Nenakhov
> Maybe I misunderstood, but other than it not being appealing visually, why couldn't you include 5 links in the body? But with 0385 if I want to have just images with empty body?
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Andrew Nenakhov
Naturally with client that supports 0385 I think I can send empty body and 5 items with images and get desired behavior
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ralphm
Andrew Nenakhov: oh, right, that's a good point. In our case we didn't use begin/end and used the body as a fallback.
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Andrew Nenakhov
But how to provide fallback?
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ralphm
So our body had the urls of the images.
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ralphm
But you can do the same in case the client does understand SIMS, as the client could see that the body only has things being referenced and just ignore the body.
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ralphm
But good point.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
I think that body should in all cases treated as fallback method. Obvious solution Is to add <formatted> to XEP
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ralphm
By point is that if the body has 'https://example.org/1.jpg https://example.org/2.jpg', and SIMS that refers to them, it would see that it is basically image + space + image, and choose to ignore it.
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ralphm
On the other hand, we were also going to do more rich formatting, with carrousels for images, etc. For that, maybe SIMS is less ideal as-is.
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ralphm
And buttons
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ralphm
Unfortunately we didn't get to define those fully, yet.
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ralphm
At some point, fallbacks become hard, and you have to admit defeat. I.e. accept that some clients will have a degraded experience.
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ralphm
In the case where a newer version of the client would support it, the fallback text could reference that fact instead.
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ralphm
It all depends on the ecosystem, in our case we controlled both client and server deployment.
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Andrew Nenakhov
We always treat body as fallback to dumbest possible client.
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Andrew Nenakhov
So pasting all links is a must.
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Andrew Nenakhov
But making advances client follow some vague rules to ignore body because it has specific type of format... No I dont think it'll work well
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Andrew Nenakhov
I'll think of it.
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Andrew Nenakhov
Do any clients support 0385? I'm not a fan of it, but if it has some spread, I might reconsider
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ralphm
Not sure, outside of our app
-
Andrew Nenakhov
What is that app you are referring to?
-
ralphm
The VEON app. You can no longer get it.
-
Andrew Nenakhov
Oh ok.
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oli
"For many years Iβve interacted with my fellow humans, I think perhaps more than any other way, via the medium of Internet chat. But in my chat window, theyβre fading, one by one. This problem is technical and personal and I felt it ought not to go unrecognized." https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2019/03/11/Lights-Going-Out
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ralphm
oli: http://logs.xmpp.org/xsf/2019-03-12#2019-03-12-d63cfafd77ebcb99
-
oli
ralphm: thx
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ralphm
Some more discussion this morning, so you want yo check the next day in the archive
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zinid
dwd, here?
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zinid
dwd, how is it hard to reopen XMPP WG?