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Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

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Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#141
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok. now i remember things better let me rephrase it. matrix was initiated by/inside amdocs. it (given that it was amdocs) was meant to be sold to telecoms to compete with OTT offerings (open source wording, etc - amdocs was adding it to everything back in this timeframe as it was trendy). I was sufficiently "high up" in organization to hear this pitch. For record I said that they (telecoms) won't buy it and I didn't…

> matrix was initiated by/inside amdocs. it was initiated very much by me & the UC team while inside Amdocs. > it (given that it was amdocs) was meant to be sold to telecoms to compete with OTT offerings in the 5-10 year horizon, yes. And indeed eventually (as Element) we have ended up with a bunch of telco customers. However, this was not the immediate goal at the time - it's not like Matrix was created to improve E…

>it was initiated very much by me & the UC team while inside Amdocs.

in other words by amdocs.

ericsson starting to sell matrix based solution while amdocs not selling any (or none of traditional amdocs clients like AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, etc expressing interest in buying one), it's the definition of "no go" and "no fit" for amdocs. At this timeframe, amdocs could sink tens of millions of dollars into open source project if they thought that they will get some money back. ONAP will be prime example of this.

internal presentation in amdocs that were circulated on VP+ level most definitely talked about scratching immediate business itch for Amdocs. It was talking about how telecoms are upset that OTT messaging killing SMS and profits and that matrix is attempt to give to telecoms something to compete with it. I said that idea that telecoms can get this market back is bananas, but management had shiny new toy to play with and they were excited about it. Hence they allowed it to run till the moment that they saw that no profit can be done there.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#142
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why everything has to be centralized/ routed through an intermediary. Well I do understand it, modern big corps wants to be that intermediary for various reasons, but thats a business reason not a technical one. centralized? no If you sign up for messaging on let's say Signal, do you really want your client to talk to Facebook, Google and dozens of other services? And do you want the users of you…

My idea is basically person to person comms. Why can't they just send messages directly to each other? I guess mobile can't do this and relies on polling (i.e. you can't expose a service running on the phone for security reasons). And when the group gets large enough, beyond say 3-4, sending messages to each recipient gets unwieldly

Directly doesn't work over the internet, because the internet doesn't work like that. You'd be restricted to bluetooth, wifi direct or similar.

If you allow for forwarding in between, there are p2p messengers. Messages are stored - if at all - using store & forward techniques. They can use the internet, but also bluetooth and other communication technology to transmit messages. The most popular ones would be Briar and Jami. Matrix P2P exists at an experimental stage as well (moving servers onto devices).

The problem with them you give up convenient things, even though there are often are workarounds. For instance, plain p2p you cannot communicate with offline devices, but store and forward techniques exist, either storing messages on random people or dedicated store and forward servers.

Battery drain, lack of reliability. It's just extremely simple, quick and reliable to send messages to a defined server and receive Push Notifications via push service.

Want a reliable storage of your messages (encrypted) such that you can always access them when you wish? well...

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#143
post #61

"Since 3 years the European Commission works on a plan to automatically monitor all chat, email and messenger conversations.12 If this is going to pass, and I strongly hope it will not, the European Union is moving into a direction we know from states suppressing freedom of speech." If this come to pass, there will be two approaches: 1. People will not share anything important online, only in person 2. Every friends…

3. Normal people accept surveillance and techies are tracked down / silenced. Given our current surveillance state with social networks, I don't see (1) or (2) as real options.

Yeah that made me laugh, aint no way average people are going to care. They already assume things are maximally bad. They assume things aree completely public and still choose to overshare. They are past the point in caring and I dont blame them, its near impossible to actually take serious without going down a schizo rabbit hole.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#144
post #126

I love XMPP. I've never missed a notification with it and I wished I switched back to it sooner rather than sticking with Matrix, I do wish it gets more love these days. I've been tempted to make my own desktop client and integrate VoIP with something like Mumble to achieve a Discord like experience with voice channels, but that's way beyond my pay grade.

Movim and Dino do multi-party jingle, aka voice and video group calls. Maybe you can contribute to improving it ;)

[deleted]

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#145
post #126

I love XMPP. I've never missed a notification with it and I wished I switched back to it sooner rather than sticking with Matrix, I do wish it gets more love these days. I've been tempted to make my own desktop client and integrate VoIP with something like Mumble to achieve a Discord like experience with voice channels, but that's way beyond my pay grade.

Movim and Dino do multi-party jingle, aka voice and video group calls. Maybe you can contribute to improving it ;)

Jingle is P2P with an optional server middleman for firewalled connections only no? I haven't seen any support for actually hosting a voice server with XMPP, only just allowing clients to figure it out themselves. I'll give it a look either way.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#146
post #77

XMPP has very nice server implementations, and the protocol is OK regarding complexity. But the clients are lacking. On linux there is gajim that is "okish" but it lacks calling capacity with mobile clients. On mobile there is conversation and derivatives on android which are "nearly there" and monad on iOS. Globally, the main lacking features are: - voice and video calls cross platform - gif integration, tenor/giphy…

I kind of view the lack of gifs as something positive? Like, it forces one to use actual words and think out a response. Plus, you're not leaking all the tracking associated with those widgets. However, I understand that people have come to expect having fun experiences in their IM clients, and that usually requires reacting with animated GIFs.

I agree but it's a required feature for many people.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#147
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My idea is basically person to person comms. Why can't they just send messages directly to each other? I guess mobile can't do this and relies on polling (i.e. you can't expose a service running on the phone for security reasons). And when the group gets large enough, beyond say 3-4, sending messages to each recipient gets unwieldly

Directly doesn't work over the internet, because the internet doesn't work like that. You'd be restricted to bluetooth, wifi direct or similar. If you allow for forwarding in between, there are p2p messengers. Messages are stored - if at all - using store & forward techniques. They can use the internet, but also bluetooth and other communication technology to transmit messages. The most popular ones would be Briar an…

> Directly doesn't work over the internet, because the internet doesn't work like that. You'd be restricted to bluetooth, wifi direct or similar.

That is how "the internet" has worked forever.

People have been running servers on their own home machines, for a long time. If you really want you can setup a webserver/sshd/etc. on your own machine and access it from the outside if you don't care about DNS and static IP. Will also probably need to port forward at the router, though.

Its less common nowadays due to the cloud, and security issues, etc. sure. And I'm not sure to what extent its possible over mobile.

But for two people who are on PCs/Macs, it should definitely be possible. And it would be much lower latency because you don't have to bounce it off another server.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#149
post #126

I love XMPP. I've never missed a notification with it and I wished I switched back to it sooner rather than sticking with Matrix, I do wish it gets more love these days. I've been tempted to make my own desktop client and integrate VoIP with something like Mumble to achieve a Discord like experience with voice channels, but that's way beyond my pay grade.

Movim and Dino do multi-party jingle, aka voice and video group calls. Maybe you can contribute to improving it ;)

And Libervia (disclaimer: I'm the lead dev). It also implements SFU including components (based on Galène), but I'm reworking design on this part.

Also note that Libervia is using a backend/frontends architecture with a D-Bus API, you can use it to make your own frontend with any language you like.

Re: Modern messaging: Running your own XMPP server

#150
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Movim and Dino do multi-party jingle, aka voice and video group calls. Maybe you can contribute to improving it ;)

Jingle is P2P with an optional server middleman for firewalled connections only no? I haven't seen any support for actually hosting a voice server with XMPP, only just allowing clients to figure it out themselves. I'll give it a look either way.

Indeed, Jingle is for establishing connections, P2P when possible, but there are lot of extensions around it.

I've proposed a specification for SFU hosting (check https://bloggeek.me/webrtcglossary/sfu/ if you don't know what's a SFU), and wrote a component based on the excellent Galène SFU, as well as client implementation (in Libervia) as part of a NLNet/NGI grant (https://nlnet.nl/project/Libervia-AV/).

XMPP council (disclaimer: I'm a council member for the current term) asked me to some modifications and to re-propose, which I'm about to do. I couldn't find the time so far (cause I'm working on ton on stuffs), but will go back to it very soon.

To sum-up: this is very much worked on.

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