4 ms·

So nice to hear it: - We are completely open source under Apache License 2.0 - We are working on the federation. Unfortunately there are no production ready f

by ex3ndr 11y ago

So nice to hear it: - We are completely open source under Apache License 2.0 - We are working on the federation. Unfortunately there are no production ready federation protocols at all. XMPP is dead. - We are work on multiple devices - We have Android, iOS, Win/Lin/Mac. Anything else? Windows Phone is dead too, other html5-based phones are not popular yet. - We have two layer TLS with russian and us encryption together. We are in progress in porting Signal's end-to-end protocol. - You can use email or phone based auth. Our Email-based auth is named "enterprise", but it is same as personal.

beluria 11y ago
I'd like to point out about your statement on Windows Phone: your monetization plan is about business users, right? Well, there's quite a few enterprise players that are a good chunk on Windows Phone (now Windows Mobile), if not entirely Windows stack. I do not think it's wise to ignore a not-so-small target, given that your competition do support the platform.
- ex3ndr 11y ago
  Thank you. We can easily implement new apps for new platforms during our architecture. Will see if someone will ask about this and will be ready to pay for this.
darklajid 11y ago
To be explicit (you implied being involved ofc): You're the CEO of actor, right? :) Thank you for the replies. Questions: 1) My first "Why Actor" question still stands. How do you position yourself against Telegram (according to the first Actor post that's where you're coming from) or other solutions? The web page didn't help me. 2) How are you planning to make money/to stay in business? Regarding the bullet points: - How easy is it to build/run a server? - Everytime federated messages come up, someone will mention matrix [1][2]. Did you look into that? - Can you explain 'two layer TLS with russian and us encryption'? Or point me to a resource about that? 1: http://matrix.org http://matrix.org 2: http://vector.im http://vector.im
- ex3ndr 11y ago
  > You're the CEO of actor, right? Yes, my pleasure. > How do you position yourself against Telegram (according to the first Actor post that's where you're coming from) or other solutions? We are replacement for Jabber with powerful productivity-related apps on desktop and people-friendly mobile apps. We are completely open, high performant out of the box. Unlike Jabber we are not non-profit that helps us keep development of the platform, but our sources are completely open. > How are you planning to make money/to stay in business? Actor is already profitable company. A lot of people want to make their own messaging solution, integrate to existing systems, make some customizations and even solve email overflow or other communication issues in the big organizations (with 100k+ of employees). Server can handle millions of users just like Telegram and people need it if they have resources to launch niche messaging app in some country, but don't want to spend years to build it (like we was). That's how we make money. We are lack of resources for landing page development - all forces used at our desktop/web app. If someone want to join us just email me) at steve (at) actor.im :) We are hope that we will clean up all sych stuff on the next stage of our product. > How easy is it to build/run a server? Almost just like apt-get install actor with required configuration: https://github.com/actorapp/actor-bootstrap/tree/master/docs/server https://github.com/actorapp/actor-bootstrap/tree/master/docs... > Everytime federated messages come up, someone will mention matrix Yes. We talked to them. Actually we use matrix ideas in our s2s protocol drafts: https://github.com/actorapp/actor-platform/blob/master/docs/s2s/basic-principles.md https://github.com/actorapp/actor-platform/blob/master/docs/... One problem with matrix is that it is not considered as production ready, but actor is and already serve 100k's users on foreign instances and it is production ready. We will work on our draft and will then merge our ideas with matrix one.
davorb 11y ago
Are you just using Signal's protocol internally, or will I be able to communicate with Signal users?
- ex3ndr 11y ago
  We have asked for Signal's detailed protocol specs, but we was unable to get them for months from Signal's team. Also i suppose our implementation is slightly different and can be incompatible. Also it is seems that they abandoned their federation support.
drdaeman 11y ago
> XMPP is dead. What makes you think so?
- ex3ndr 11y ago
  Every major non-enterprise vendor abandoned it. Every company that i know and worked with XMPP completely rewrite it's stack .
  - drdaeman 11y ago
    Hm. I've heard of at least two major non-enterprise vendors that still use XMPP a lot: Google (GCM, Chrome Sync) and EA (Origin). I'm also not sure a technology needs even one vendor to live. Say, BitTorrent surely didn't care whenever it's used by big corps or not.
    - ex3ndr 11y ago
      We need to distinguish XMPP as messaging for devices/servers or for people and so GCM is not an example of people friendly protocol. EA doesn't care about quality of their messaging. There are no one large scale messaging that is not supported by at least one good vendor. XMPP started to die shortly after google disabled it's support in google talk.
      - drdaeman 11y ago
        Not sure I get the idea. Why does it matter? There is no messaging protocols for people, except for IRC, maybe. No human normally speaks XMPP, MSNP, MQTT, MTProto or anything like that. And, for example, Signal essentially uses GCM (thus, XMPP, although in an uncommon manner) as a primary choice for their transport layer. XMPP isn't dead. It's just that a) it has some warts and b) large vendors don't give a damn about interoperability or anything (Google tried to persuade others to interconnect, haven't worked for them, they shut it back) and prefer their own walled gardens.
upofadown 11y ago
>XMPP is dead. Oh? The last I checked there were well over 100 public XMPP servers listed at IM Observatory. Those servers are federated. What would it take for XMPP to be not dead? * https://www.xmpp.net/directory.php https://www.xmpp.net/directory.php Note that there are several popular server implementations in actual use and that the release dates for the software currently on the net mostly happened this year. The thing is, all an IM provider has to do is create a XMPP transport for their protocol using the tons of existing XMPP software freely available and then you have XMPP federation. It isn't even that hard. So it always seems odd to hear that people absolutely can't interconnect with a large operating network that embodies the closest thing we have to an IM interoperability standard. One thing shown not to work is creating yet another protocol under the theory that everyone else will become compatible with it. If you do that you are just wasting your time.
MzHN 11y ago
Reading this currently on a Windows Phone. It always stings a bit, but I guess it's true. Currently I'm stuck with WhatsApp though, because can't get my contacts to a different platform.

by ex3ndr 11y ago

beluria 11y ago

I'd like to point out about your statement on Windows Phone: your monetization plan is about business users, right? Well, there's quite a few enterprise players that are a good chunk on Windows Phone (now Windows Mobile), if not entirely Windows stack. I do not think it's wise to ignore a not-so-small target, given that your competition do support the platform.

ex3ndr 11y ago
Thank you. We can easily implement new apps for new platforms during our architecture. Will see if someone will ask about this and will be ready to pay for this.

darklajid 11y ago

To be explicit (you implied being involved ofc): You're the CEO of actor, right? :) Thank you for the replies. Questions: 1) My first "Why Actor" question still stands. How do you position yourself against Telegram (according to the first Actor post that's where you're coming from) or other solutions? The web page didn't help me. 2) How are you planning to make money/to stay in business? Regarding the bullet points: - How easy is it to build/run a server? - Everytime federated messages come up, someone will mention matrix [1][2]. Did you look into that? - Can you explain 'two layer TLS with russian and us encryption'? Or point me to a resource about that? 1: http://matrix.org http://matrix.org 2: http://vector.im http://vector.im

ex3ndr 11y ago
> You're the CEO of actor, right? Yes, my pleasure. > How do you position yourself against Telegram (according to the first Actor post that's where you're coming from) or other solutions? We are replacement for Jabber with powerful productivity-related apps on desktop and people-friendly mobile apps. We are completely open, high performant out of the box. Unlike Jabber we are not non-profit that helps us keep development of the platform, but our sources are completely open. > How are you planning to make money/to stay in business? Actor is already profitable company. A lot of people want to make their own messaging solution, integrate to existing systems, make some customizations and even solve email overflow or other communication issues in the big organizations (with 100k+ of employees). Server can handle millions of users just like Telegram and people need it if they have resources to launch niche messaging app in some country, but don't want to spend years to build it (like we was). That's how we make money. We are lack of resources for landing page development - all forces used at our desktop/web app. If someone want to join us just email me) at steve (at) actor.im :) We are hope that we will clean up all sych stuff on the next stage of our product. > How easy is it to build/run a server? Almost just like apt-get install actor with required configuration: https://github.com/actorapp/actor-bootstrap/tree/master/docs/server https://github.com/actorapp/actor-bootstrap/tree/master/docs... > Everytime federated messages come up, someone will mention matrix Yes. We talked to them. Actually we use matrix ideas in our s2s protocol drafts: https://github.com/actorapp/actor-platform/blob/master/docs/s2s/basic-principles.md https://github.com/actorapp/actor-platform/blob/master/docs/... One problem with matrix is that it is not considered as production ready, but actor is and already serve 100k's users on foreign instances and it is production ready. We will work on our draft and will then merge our ideas with matrix one.

davorb 11y ago

Are you just using Signal's protocol internally, or will I be able to communicate with Signal users?

ex3ndr 11y ago
We have asked for Signal's detailed protocol specs, but we was unable to get them for months from Signal's team. Also i suppose our implementation is slightly different and can be incompatible. Also it is seems that they abandoned their federation support.

drdaeman 11y ago

> XMPP is dead. What makes you think so?

ex3ndr 11y ago
Every major non-enterprise vendor abandoned it. Every company that i know and worked with XMPP completely rewrite it's stack .
- drdaeman 11y ago
  Hm. I've heard of at least two major non-enterprise vendors that still use XMPP a lot: Google (GCM, Chrome Sync) and EA (Origin). I'm also not sure a technology needs even one vendor to live. Say, BitTorrent surely didn't care whenever it's used by big corps or not.
  - ex3ndr 11y ago
    We need to distinguish XMPP as messaging for devices/servers or for people and so GCM is not an example of people friendly protocol. EA doesn't care about quality of their messaging. There are no one large scale messaging that is not supported by at least one good vendor. XMPP started to die shortly after google disabled it's support in google talk.
    - drdaeman 11y ago
      Not sure I get the idea. Why does it matter? There is no messaging protocols for people, except for IRC, maybe. No human normally speaks XMPP, MSNP, MQTT, MTProto or anything like that. And, for example, Signal essentially uses GCM (thus, XMPP, although in an uncommon manner) as a primary choice for their transport layer. XMPP isn't dead. It's just that a) it has some warts and b) large vendors don't give a damn about interoperability or anything (Google tried to persuade others to interconnect, haven't worked for them, they shut it back) and prefer their own walled gardens.

upofadown 11y ago

>XMPP is dead. Oh? The last I checked there were well over 100 public XMPP servers listed at IM Observatory. Those servers are federated. What would it take for XMPP to be not dead? * https://www.xmpp.net/directory.php https://www.xmpp.net/directory.php Note that there are several popular server implementations in actual use and that the release dates for the software currently on the net mostly happened this year. The thing is, all an IM provider has to do is create a XMPP transport for their protocol using the tons of existing XMPP software freely available and then you have XMPP federation. It isn't even that hard. So it always seems odd to hear that people absolutely can't interconnect with a large operating network that embodies the closest thing we have to an IM interoperability standard. One thing shown not to work is creating yet another protocol under the theory that everyone else will become compatible with it. If you do that you are just wasting your time.

MzHN 11y ago

Reading this currently on a Windows Phone. It always stings a bit, but I guess it's true. Currently I'm stuck with WhatsApp though, because can't get my contacts to a different platform.