XSF Discussion - 2022-07-27

https://media.ccc.de/v/mch2022-196-signal-you-were-the-chosen-one-

And the HN thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32244795

> We're trying to evolve and upgrade email to have the look and feel and features of a product like Signal

I mean i'm all for a email client that does GPG well in a easy to understand way but I don't think that's what they are talking about.

The big barrier of entry I have found with XMPP is there isn't a solid client I can recommend for every platform (Windows, Linux, OSX, ios, android)

jjrh: lot of client are done by single dev or small entities, and it's really complicated to target all platforms and make a good UX if you don't have a lot of developing resources.

jjrh: Snikket is doing a neat job by working with existing well-established client (one per platform), and working on UX and interoperability

I'm currently testing it, it's really nice work.

goffi, oh 100% and gui stuff outside the web is just hard.

I'd be interest in what Snikket suggests for IOS - every time I have tried to onboard someone on IOS it's been riddled with problems - and this is from technical users mostly.

jjrh, a client called Snikket. :p

The same name as the client on Android, but a different codebase.

And it’s vetted to work against the server called Snikket.

The code is fresh or a fork of something?

ah based on siskin

It’s a fork of Tigase’s SiskinIM.

Does it do omemo?

Yes.

Maybe i'll suggest that to some coworkers - big issue I ran into was push notifications but I think I resolved that - wasn't loading the prosody module.

The Snikket apps are recommended for use with a Snikket server, otherwise you (server admin) needs to keep completely on top of required config on the server

That won’t work as well with any random server as with the Snikket server, there are some non-standard extensions that are mostly missing standardisation so far.

ah

I'll have to take a closer look - what's the recommendation for OSX and windows?

Nothing yet, there are branded clients only for Android and iOS so far.

See https://snikket.org/faq/#q-can-i-use-non-snikket-apps-to-connect-to-a-snikket-server

Does the server install include a webclient?

No, not currently

It's on the roadmap

Sounds like a great project that is tackling some of my grips with getting folks on XMPP

I remember a while back someone talking about writing a XEP to do something similar to what whatsapp, google sms messenger, etc does where when you want to use a browser (or app) to login you simply scan a QR code from your phone that is already authenticated. Did that ever happen or go anywhere?

Yes, I got funding from NLnet to work on that: https://blog.prosody.im/modern-xmpp-auth/

The first pieces will be merged into Prosody very soon

Very cool!

what jjrh said!11 :)

is the XSF summit for 2023 in person or online?

I would very much hope it will be in person

Couldn't find any info on if fosdem was going to be in person yet

Yeah, I think that will be a big factor. Even if FOSDEM is online (which I suspect is unlikely at this point) I would like to see the XSF organize one or more in-person events

Might be interesting to have a XSF event before a IETF meeting.

Did someone say London in November?

Isn't FOSDEM an event happening in Europe?

Ge0rG?

MattJ: is it too early for brexit jokes?

Always

sorry

https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/upcoming/

Might be really interesting to do London :)

Damn, meetings are planned until 2028, that's some serious agenda :D

Makes sense since you need to book the entire hotel.

Ge0rG, I thought it was too late for brexit jokes

moparisthebest: oh, they returned into the EU?

MattJ I'd be pleased to integrate those modern XMPP auth things in Movim !

edhelas, excellent! I think Movim is a great candidate :)

I'll let you know as soon as I have something for you to give feedback on and/or implement

Ge0rG, nah just old news, it'd be like joking about how bad AOL instant messager is

MattJ I'll try to have a look at the specs to see how difficult it can be. Maybe I can apply for a small NLNet fund for it ?

Worth asking :)

Who would be responsible for XMPP Summit organisation?

The SCAM team

MattJ: Thanks, but SCAM Team is eager to do so and has the resources?

They have one job!

SCAM Team Assemble !

From my perspective, that team has been pretty inactive the past couple of years. I can't deny I'm disappointed that no attempt to replace the missed summits with anything was attempted. It's been a tough few years for sure, but other organizations managed it.

I think that could be a thing board could ask if they want to and if not, call for an organisation team

🤷 ✏

emus, part of board is part of SCAM, and I expressed my disappointment multiple times, but if nobody steps up (whether they are currently on SCAM or not) then expressing disappointment isn't going to change much :)

maybe you need to write a strongly worded chat message

Balls were dropped there, definitely. Apologies

That said, I have little energy to spare on SCAM for the time being

Reorganisation might be good

> Reorganisation might be good I think that would be the best thing. I think I support here and in a potential new SCAM team (maybe also a new name? 😊)

ralphm, arc, jcbrand: dare I ask if anyone is here? :)

Yes

\o/

Can we manage one more?

Bangs

1. Welcome!

Who do we have?

o/

Here

This is an hour before I thought we were meeting, but Im here

It is 15:30 UTC?

jcbrand already indicated he wouldn't be able to make it at this time

Ok, let's go then

Hi

I'm here

Oh wow, excellent :)

Woohoo

Ok, so let's try to do every other week from September onwards?

We can see how that goes

Also, good to be back.

Works for me, should I set my own calendar notification or will we do a global one?

It's good to have you back :)

I will, just as today, add it to the XSF calendar

(the Google one)

Shall I try this timeslot?

This works for me. I thought it was an hour later, but this works better in case we run over 30 mins

I can definitely make it work if this is okay for everyone else.

Cool

Anything else to note at this agenda item?

In any case thanks Matt for getting this going

Not from me. Sounds like we have a good plan.

Actually where are we on employer stats?

2. XEP-0001 Archived state

As long as we have at least quarterly meetings (i.e. what's required by the bylaws) I'm good :)

I don't need to know the statistics I'm just making sure someone's keeping track, because this was an issue a few years ago

Alex generally monitors this, I think

Mattj I believe annual meetings also work because I'm on a board for a few nonprofits that just do annual

arc, the XSF bylaws require at least quarterly meetings of the board, but this is something that could be changed

Ah, ok. Well, weekly is fine for me

Personally I think monthly or quarterly would be generally adequate

I don't think we need to change this

So I'll schedule it and see how that goes

Now, on to 2?

ralphm, my worry is that people can get burnt out and/or complacent with weekly (which is not common at all for org board meetings)

But yep, let's see how it goes

2: I can say something

Go ahead

I don't see anything necessarily wrong with this, but I'd like to see if we can get some broader list discussion from the community rather than just a quiet PR to a XEP at the foundation of our process

ARTICLE V Section 5.3 > the Board of Directors shall hold regular meetings according to a schedule established by the Board of Directors, but not _less frequently than quarterly._

If we agree on this, I'm happy to send such an email to spark discussion

and then hopefully we can make a decision in +2w

For sure we need some community input.

What's Council's take?

I am here

We haven't discussed it in our meeting today, but from my perspective as editor and council member (definitely not speaking for the entire group, because we haven't discussed it, as I mentioned), I'd appreciate community discussion first.

Though this PR is older than I expected

cccccbctekgckcejgtnkfhljtknjdibhkciuugcbjejf

hello yubikey

oops

I think we *did* have community discussion at or around June 23rd, 2021

Hehe

which revises my take to "I need to review that discussion"

Let's revive that then

Reviewing previous feedback can be done in parallel

3. Aging Infra

My take is: please just make a plan and execute. We have money and this is a good place to spend it.

Ok, this is to highlight that we have critical services running on ancient hardware

Who hosts us?

I find it hard to pick if dedicated hardware or Cloud is better for our case, but don't think Board has to make that call. Our ED + iteam can do this just fine.

We should consider our DNS/mail server atlas, for example. We can purchase a replacement, seek a sponsor of newer hardware for the bunker, or even other hosting options or managed services

I am very okay with moving to third-party hosted DNS. I'm less sure about mail

It would be nice if we could gain mailman3 eventually.

That's partly blocked by our old hardware

Which is how this came up

Let's not have that discussion here. What's blocking you/team from making a plan and just doing it? How can we help unblock?

I was hoping for some more input on the decisions :)

Especially as there are significant differences in them from the financial perspective

Hardware so old it can't run Django?

That would be extremely frightening. I can run Mailman 3 on a raspberry pi

arc, we need to upgrade the OS, but at least one of our other servers won't boot newer kernels. We can risk an in-place upgrade of this server, but have no fallback if it goes bad.

arc, hardware so old that you don't get packaged mailman3.

you truly don't want to know ^_^

Oh. That's different

MattJ, lacking board input, I propose we two as iteam members sit together and make a plan some time

or two plans

and offer them to board for decision

Sure, okay

Again, if you say it makes sense to buy new hardware, let's do so. But I'm equally ok with having a VM in some cloud provider. Yes, it will be more expensive. But let's do a calculation on that vs. effort and see if we can afford that. We might also get sponsors for that

I have no strong opinion on this

Right. We'll do as jonas’ suggested then, if nobody has an opinion or guidance at this stage.

I have plenty of opinions, but in general the answer is 'it depends' 🫤

So +1 on that suggestion

Two plans sounds great, then we can feel like we're making a decision even though the decision will likely be obvious given the options

+1

:)

We have plenty more on the agenda, but it looks like most of those could be done (initially?) on list?

That's fine with me if we need to wrap up

Let's have something to discuss for next week

I'm actually free for the next hour but I'm happy to keep these to 30 minutes

I am not unfortunately, but can participate in email

Or next week

Next week or +2w? :)

Ok, let's do +2W

Hmm, that's 10th August? I might actually be travelling that day

I *could* do next week though

Ok +1W

Cya then

Thanks all!

Thanks! I'll send minutes soon

Sorry for the silence, I have another meeting running in parallel. I did read everything though

No worries, thanks :)

Next week I'm on holiday, but I'll have my phone with my and will try to join

arc: my monthly holiday

You Europeans and your monthly holidays lol

I envy you

> ralphm wrote: > My take is: please just make a plan and execute. We have money and this is a good place to spend it. 👍

> jonas’ wrote: > It would be nice if we could gain mailman3 eventually. +1

> MattJ wrote: > That's partly blocked by our old hardware > Which is how this came up oh, ok I see

Just Do It!

> MattJ wrote: > Right. We'll do as jonas’ suggested then, if nobody has an opinion or guidance at this stage. I prefer not cloud, but I am also the one with fewest knowledge here 🤷🏻‍♂️ In any way, if I can support this let me know. Besides, I was think of a general survey with xsf members. the hardware and service infrastructure could be one topic. but this is maybe overkill for this decision (but generally speaking good IMO)

jcbrand: but do you have an opinion on the hardware stuff? MattJ: singpolyma might support with the hardware/hosting question, too (if you want more opinion) maybe a mail to members could give you an impression too. Happy to support again

the only opinions that matter are the people actually supporting it, I wouldn't ask anyone else's opinion, at least broadly like that

Let's build a 300 node raspberry pi k8s cluster!!!!11!eleven /s

Cloud-based infra might give is more access / reduce dependency on the one person that has physical access, and will have less upfront costs. It tends to be more flexible, for what it's worth, with regards to resizing, and it can be more fault tolerant (assuming the cloud provider replaces broken instances automatically).

But email?

But email.

Hm, but email is probably orthogonal.

We know we've had basically no issue with mail from the bunker, my inclination would be to just replace atlas with another low-power server in the bunker and be done with it. Path of least resistance.

Generally speaking, I'd be in favour of outsourcing anything that we reasonably can to people dedicated to the service to be maintained. They probably have better qualifications and tooling, and it frees up our most scarce resource: brainpower.

MattJ Zash: Whats your gut feeling what go for?

🤷️

Pancakes I think

Guus: I would also not go against even its not my prefered solution. The only thing I expect is respect to privacy of the setup

For running public mailing lists?

Zash: wouldnt be only public right? maybe then we can also.have member mails etc.? and would you like to have a service full of tracking?

(not that I expect anyone.here will go for something like.this)

There are private mailing lists and subscribers who join may not want to publicly disclose their subscription status (I don't know if this is a property that mailman has or not)

what are we trying to protect against exactly? email isn't very private

moparisthebest: at least tracking and ReCaptcha for subscription 😊

Can always just run your own subscription form with almost any mail provider. What kind of server used, or even full cloud services, isn't going to mandate any of that kind of tracking

ok