5 ms·

Maybe the problem here is that we advertise XMPP as if it were a service, when it's a protocol that "normies" shouldn't ever have to hear about and care about.

Maybe the problem here is that we advertise XMPP as if it were a service, when it's a protocol that "normies" shouldn't ever have to hear about and care about. They should just be using the "ChatPro Company Fancy Name" app on their phone (which has fancy gif search), and not have to understand that it's federated under the hood. XMPP doesn't have to offer these things, the service using it does. That's the part I think the XMPP community is missing right now, a good public chat service that's federated and not strictly for businesses.

blfr 9y ago
OK but now you're targeting the provider. Why should ChatPro use XMPP? Whisper Systems wanted to get (their clever version of) strong end to end encryption in the hands of regulars users so they created Signal. Moxie has blog posts[1] and long discussions why XMPP was unsuitable in which he answers your idea: if vast majority of users will coalesce around ChatPro anyway, why not get the benefits of a centralized communicator? Others want to silo their users, or offer this and that fancy feature. Why would they use XMPP? And what is the benefit of using XMPP if it's really just ChatPro with a mostly unused s2s federation port open on their server somewhere? [1] https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
- ge0rg 9y ago
  I think that ChatPro (or any other SV startup) is motivated in silo lock-in of their users indeed. Normal people don't care much about it, they just move to the next silo at some point. I see an interesting niche for XMPP in business deployments, basically what's currently covered by Slack, where you (as a user) often need to have multiple accounts just to participate in different teams of your BigCorp. XMPP allows a company to host their IM infrastructure on-premise or to use a service like ChatPro, and there is a business interest in requiring federation to allow easier interop with suppliers and customers. We just failed to execute on that mission so far... ;-)
  - qznc 9y ago
    We need a GitLab for XMPP.
    - sytse 9y ago
      GitLab is looking at Matrix https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - rakoo 9y ago
    Hipchat is all xmpp. We didn't fail, it's just not advertized enough!
    - ge0rg 9y ago
      It looks like in some regions HipChat is a thing, while in others people don't even know what it is. I haven't seen it yet in my professional practice in Germany, whereas Lync (Skype 4 business) is almost everywhere...
microcolonel 9y ago
> Maybe the problem here is that we advertise XMPP as if it were a service, when it's a protocol that "normies" shouldn't ever have to hear about and care about. I don't think this is true. With email, SMTP is dominant, I do not know of any surviving legacy email service. To today's normie, email and SMTP are synonymous. XMPP is an even more garbage name than SMTP, but if a standard united the market like it did with email, then there would be a word that is synonymous with that standard. I think probably the best bet would be to try to turn SMTP into an IM protocol. Then people will make no (protocol-level) distinction between an email thread and an IM conversation. Threads and conversations can be both email.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  But you're proving the parent poster's point here. Normies never hear of SMTP except when they copy and paste some incantation from their email provider's website. It's email, it works, and they have no idea how.
  - wink 9y ago
    There's only literally 3 options. PLAIN/SSL/STARTTLS. I see one of XMPP's major problems that even people who liked, advocated, and worked (not extensively, but more than most I guess) with XMPP can't remember the name or details of a single XEP. In theory everything is compatible, in reality you're lucky if s2s works with the right crypto and you don't get gibberish because of OTR.
jkarneges 9y ago
I think you hit the nail on the head. People simply use what's offered by companies. If we think people should be using applications that utilize certain protocols, then what we really need to do is convince/incentivize companies to build their applications to use those protocols.

blfr 9y ago

OK but now you're targeting the provider. Why should ChatPro use XMPP? Whisper Systems wanted to get (their clever version of) strong end to end encryption in the hands of regulars users so they created Signal. Moxie has blog posts[1] and long discussions why XMPP was unsuitable in which he answers your idea: if vast majority of users will coalesce around ChatPro anyway, why not get the benefits of a centralized communicator? Others want to silo their users, or offer this and that fancy feature. Why would they use XMPP? And what is the benefit of using XMPP if it's really just ChatPro with a mostly unused s2s federation port open on their server somewhere? [1] https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

ge0rg 9y ago
I think that ChatPro (or any other SV startup) is motivated in silo lock-in of their users indeed. Normal people don't care much about it, they just move to the next silo at some point. I see an interesting niche for XMPP in business deployments, basically what's currently covered by Slack, where you (as a user) often need to have multiple accounts just to participate in different teams of your BigCorp. XMPP allows a company to host their IM infrastructure on-premise or to use a service like ChatPro, and there is a business interest in requiring federation to allow easier interop with suppliers and customers. We just failed to execute on that mission so far... ;-)
- qznc 9y ago
  We need a GitLab for XMPP.
  - sytse 9y ago
    GitLab is looking at Matrix https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rakoo 9y ago
  Hipchat is all xmpp. We didn't fail, it's just not advertized enough!
  - ge0rg 9y ago
    It looks like in some regions HipChat is a thing, while in others people don't even know what it is. I haven't seen it yet in my professional practice in Germany, whereas Lync (Skype 4 business) is almost everywhere...

microcolonel 9y ago

> Maybe the problem here is that we advertise XMPP as if it were a service, when it's a protocol that "normies" shouldn't ever have to hear about and care about. I don't think this is true. With email, SMTP is dominant, I do not know of any surviving legacy email service. To today's normie, email and SMTP are synonymous. XMPP is an even more garbage name than SMTP, but if a standard united the market like it did with email, then there would be a word that is synonymous with that standard. I think probably the best bet would be to try to turn SMTP into an IM protocol. Then people will make no (protocol-level) distinction between an email thread and an IM conversation. Threads and conversations can be both email.

nerdponx 9y ago
But you're proving the parent poster's point here. Normies never hear of SMTP except when they copy and paste some incantation from their email provider's website. It's email, it works, and they have no idea how.
- wink 9y ago
  There's only literally 3 options. PLAIN/SSL/STARTTLS. I see one of XMPP's major problems that even people who liked, advocated, and worked (not extensively, but more than most I guess) with XMPP can't remember the name or details of a single XEP. In theory everything is compatible, in reality you're lucky if s2s works with the right crypto and you don't get gibberish because of OTR.

jkarneges 9y ago

I think you hit the nail on the head. People simply use what's offered by companies. If we think people should be using applications that utilize certain protocols, then what we really need to do is convince/incentivize companies to build their applications to use those protocols.