Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decentralize Messaging

rodarmor.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 103 posts

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#11

Post by pmlnr »

dijit wrote: post #8
jacob019 wrote: post #5

I don't know why everyone hates XMPP. There are multiple solid open source server and client applications for just about every platform. It is decentralized and works well but without google, apple, and facebook making it practical for grandma to use, it doesn't catch on. Well the big players have no incentive to cede control to decentralization.

The issues mostly stem from: 1) not knowing what is supported on the server, or the other users server. 2) not handling mobile clients well (heavy battery use, weird deliverability issues.)

1 can be queried.

2 is BS with capital letters. See Converations and it's forks.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#12

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

jacob019 wrote: post #5

I don't know why everyone hates XMPP. There are multiple solid open source server and client applications for just about every platform. It is decentralized and works well but without google, apple, and facebook making it practical for grandma to use, it doesn't catch on. Well the big players have no incentive to cede control to decentralization.

As a person involved in XMPP development for over a decade, I can tell you why.

To date, no one ever developed XMPP chat applications as a product, which can be easily deployed and will work consistently on every platform. Client and server developers were always disjointed, working separately from each other. This lead to great inconsistencies in implementations of even such basic functions like adding a contact. Also, it often happens that when a client developers need some feature that honestly should be done by a server, a developer still does this on a client, because it's all he has, with subpar results.

Absent leadership from XSF also plays a role. This club now mostly cares about bureaucracy and following a set of self-imposed rules instead of developing a set of working standards that would allow XMPP apps to compete with the best messaging apps out there. That's why it is unlikely for any great product to appear under such guidance.

We're trying a different approach, maybe we'll even succeed. If so, you'll hear about it on HN.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#14

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

pmlnr wrote: post #11
dijit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issues mostly stem from: 1) not knowing what is supported on the server, or the other users server. 2) not handling mobile clients well (heavy battery use, weird deliverability issues.)

1 can be queried. 2 is BS with capital letters. See Converations and it's forks.

2 is not BS, but not for the given reasons (heavy battery use/weird deliverability issues). 'Not handling mobile clients well' is true.

Did you ever wonder why there are no (to date) XMPP clients on iOS that are not complete and utter shit?

As a person who has first-hand knowledge of the matter, managing a team member tasked with the development of an iOS XMPP app (which is supposed to be NOT complete and utter shit), I tell you that creation of such app is impossible without reinvention of half of XMPP stack (basically every part that touches client-server interaction). Thankfully, s2s works rather fine in XMPP.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#15

Post by jacob019 »

dijit wrote: post #8
jacob019 wrote: post #5

I don't know why everyone hates XMPP. There are multiple solid open source server and client applications for just about every platform. It is decentralized and works well but without google, apple, and facebook making it practical for grandma to use, it doesn't catch on. Well the big players have no incentive to cede control to decentralization.

The issues mostly stem from: 1) not knowing what is supported on the server, or the other users server. 2) not handling mobile clients well (heavy battery use, weird deliverability issues.)

Servers most certainly do signal capabilities and extension support to clients, I do not have enough experience to comment on server-server signaling.

With message archive management and message carbons there are no weird deliverability issues. I have not noticed battery issues with conversations running on several devices for the past couple years.

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#16

Post by jacob019 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14
pmlnr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 can be queried. 2 is BS with capital letters. See Converations and it's forks.

2 is not BS, but not for the given reasons (heavy battery use/weird deliverability issues). 'Not handling mobile clients well' is true. Did you ever wonder why there are no (to date) XMPP clients on iOS that are not complete and utter shit? As a person who has first-hand knowledge of the matter, managing a team member tasked with the development of an iOS XMPP app (which is supposed to be NOT complete and utter shit)…

Perhaps Apple deserves some of the blame here? Is the protocol just too chatty?

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#17

Post by arendtio »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #12
jacob019 wrote: post #5

I don't know why everyone hates XMPP. There are multiple solid open source server and client applications for just about every platform. It is decentralized and works well but without google, apple, and facebook making it practical for grandma to use, it doesn't catch on. Well the big players have no incentive to cede control to decentralization.

As a person involved in XMPP development for over a decade, I can tell you why. To date, no one ever developed XMPP chat applications as a product, which can be easily deployed and will work consistently on every platform. Client and server developers were always disjointed, working separately from each other. This lead to great inconsistencies in implementations of even such basic functions like adding a contact. Al…

How about Quicksy.im?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...

Re: Decentralize Messaging

#18

Post by arendtio »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14
pmlnr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 can be queried. 2 is BS with capital letters. See Converations and it's forks.

2 is not BS, but not for the given reasons (heavy battery use/weird deliverability issues). 'Not handling mobile clients well' is true. Did you ever wonder why there are no (to date) XMPP clients on iOS that are not complete and utter shit? As a person who has first-hand knowledge of the matter, managing a team member tasked with the development of an iOS XMPP app (which is supposed to be NOT complete and utter shit)…

How do Whatsapp et al. work differently on iOS than XMPP clients?
Post reply on HN