14 ms·

Happy Birthday, XMPP: 20th Anniversary of Jabber

148 points by ge0rg 8y ago

jcbrand 8y ago
As luck would have it, the XMPP newsletter was also sent out today: https://xmpp.org/2019/01/the-xmpp-newsletter-4-january-2019/ https://xmpp.org/2019/01/the-xmpp-newsletter-4-january-2019/
yosamino 8y ago
I really like that xmpp is experiencing a sort of revival at the moment. Not maybe in terms of user-base, but Conversations for android is really good, on iOS ChatSecure has some issues, but is usable. OTR encryption is being replaced by OMEMO, and that actually works. I can use and try out clients to my hearts content, with messages being synchronized between them. That I can run my own server on prosody or ejabberd is really great as well. And since we're back to "Hey can we you use Signal/Threema/Whatsapp/Viber ?" anyhow, it's actually relatively easy to slide in the next option: "Hmmm, why don't we use ChatSecure ?" Thanks everyone for making it happen.
- Whatitat90 8y ago
  Conversations reached a point where I can easily install it on my family member phones and they feel it's a "normal" messenger. This doesn't sound like a high bar to reach but surprisingly it didn't happen before (at least for XMPP). Recently a spin-off of Conversations - Quicksy was introduced [0] [1] that makes the entry even easier as it offers phone number-based contact discovery. From my experience people are used to quick on-boardings and don't even want to think about things like "username" and looking for contacts. [0]: https://quicksy.im/ https://quicksy.im/ [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...
  - yosamino 8y ago
    > it didn't happen before (at least for XMPP). It was the niche of niches but the Nokia n900's standard built in xmpp client could do voice/video/filetransfer with a gnome desktop's standard messaging infrastructure (telepathy or something?) in what, like 2010 ? But, besides that, I get what you're saying about "normal" messengers and conversations nowadays. So good. Thanks Mr. Gultsch[0] ! [0] https://gultsch.de/ https://gultsch.de/
    - ppjet6 8y ago
      While I understand the concerns and I appreciate all of what Conversations' author is doing for the community, other clients have also seen significant improvements lately. Gajim[0] has practically come back from the "dead". There is a huge difference, UI/UX-wise but not just, between pre and post 1.0, (1.1 at the time of writing, 1.2 coming). There is also dino[1], a nice and simple desktop client, and converse.js[2], a fast-developing web-client. Movim[3] and Salut-à-Toi[4] are also putting in a lot of work on the social network side. [0]: https://gajim.org https://gajim.org [1]: https://dino.im https://dino.im [2]: https://conversejs.org https://conversejs.org [3]: https://movim.eu https://movim.eu [4]: https://salut-a-toi.org https://salut-a-toi.org Edit: Added conversejs
      - yosamino 8y ago
        For sure! I use gajim as my main Desktop client. And thanks for the link to salut-a-toi, I hadn't heard of it.
      - pmlnr 8y ago
        I still prefer pidgin, but it needs a lot of love to make it a reasonably modern XMPP client: - https://github.com/danielkraic/Pidgin-XEP-0136-plugin https://github.com/danielkraic/Pidgin-XEP-0136-plugin adds XEP-0136 (needs "mam_archive" on prosody) - https://github.com/gkdr/carbons https://github.com/gkdr/carbons adds XEP-0280 (Carbons) - https://github.com/Junker/purple-xmpp-http-upload https://github.com/Junker/purple-xmpp-http-upload adds XEP-363 (HTTP uploads) - https://github.com/gkdr/lurch https://github.com/gkdr/lurch adds XEP-0384 (OMEMO) - https://github.com/noonien-d/pidgin-xmpp-receipts https://github.com/noonien-d/pidgin-xmpp-receipts XEP-0184 (message delivery receipts) The real pain for Pidgin is the complete lack of XEP-313 due to Pidgin's aged logging system, and I would really like to see a working message sync for Pidgin :( EDIT: https://github.com/CkNoSFeRaTU/pidgin https://github.com/CkNoSFeRaTU/pidgin apparently has had XEP-313 patched into Pidgin for years now. Combined with lurch and Carbons, message sync is working fine.
- starsinspace 8y ago
  I gave Jabber another chance a while ago... using both ChatSecure on the phone and Gajim on the computer (phone+computer logged in on both ends of the conversation). Unfortunately it was a complete failure. Message arrival was flakey. Some messages arrived only on the computer, others only on the phone. Conversations were sometimes one-sided, with one half on phone, other on computer. Not usable for chat. All around, I have to sadly say (after 15+ years of Jabber use) that this is what I'm used to with Jabber, and that I honestly cannot recommend it to friends :-/
  - jcbrand 8y ago
    My wife, some of her friends, her parents, my parents and some of my friends all use XMPP. Mostly Conversations and I use Converse.js as well. I haven't received any complaints yet, and I've been hosting the XMPP server which most of us use (since about 2014).
  - SamWhited 8y ago
    I haven't seen anything like this in ages; what server and clients were you using? Between the history feature most things support and message carbons you should just get every message everywhere reliably (and that's what happens out of the box for me with most setups).
- pgeorgi 8y ago
  > on iOS ChatSecure has some issues I was looking into iOS options to recommend to friends and ChatSecure seems rather dormant. https://monal.im https://monal.im however is actively developed and the author is very friendly and responsive.
ppjet6 8y ago
Cake! As I said in another thread, glad to see the community is still active.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Speaking of protocols, aside IPFS, what open protocols have come out in the last 5 years?
- jcbrand 8y ago
  ActivityPub! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub
- Whatitat90 8y ago
  Matrix, a competitor to XMPP is 4 years old [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)
- motorpsycho 8y ago
  matrix dat protocol telehash v3 zot6
- ken 8y ago
  HTTP/2, though SPDY is a bit older. HTTP/3, though QUIC is a bit older. DNS over HTTPS?
bhhaskin 8y ago
I have been looking into building a XMPP server and client lately. Mainly cause the ones out there aren't super great.
- yosamino 8y ago
  Is there something you're looking for specifically? Just asking, because xmpp is currently my thing, and some of the interesting bits and tricks sometimes are a bit hidden, but there is lot's of stuff possible that I didn't think would be.
  - jcbrand 8y ago
    What XMPP stuff are you currently working on?
    - yosamino 8y ago
      Triaging bugs in ChatSecure without regular access to an iDevice. I am mostly on the admin/user side of things.
- jcbrand 8y ago
  Before doing that, please consider contributing to an existing project first. There are many out there and they'd love more contributors.
  - ape4 8y ago
    Which is the best XMPP server? For the server mentioned here... OpenFire = written in Java Prosody = Lua Ejabberd = Erlang
    - jcbrand 8y ago
      I can't say which is best, I can only say I use Prosody and am very happy with it. Here's a howto on setting it up: https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-server.html https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-server...
jugg1es 8y ago
I wish Hacker News would do a better job of insulating me from feelings of senescence. This makes me feel damn old.
funkaster 8y ago
This is great news. I'm finishing a messaging app for a non-profit and I decided to use xmpp (openfire) for the backend and it was really a time saver (the full stack is React Native (typescript), ruby (jruby + sinatra for api), openfire for messaging). I really like how easy is to extend and customize xmpp to suit your needs. Here's to another 20 years!
- Whatitat90 8y ago
  This sounds exciting! But I guess this is closed system and it's not possible to see at least a screenshot?
  - funkaster 8y ago
    I can share screenshots for sure. I was thinking of opensourcing the project after it was done, but will need some time to clean it up a bit. I will for sure write a blog post about it when it's done (next few weeks)
    - jcbrand 8y ago
      If you let me know about the blog post, I'll include it in next month's XMPP newsletter. https://xmpp.org/newsletter.html https://xmpp.org/newsletter.html My contact form: https://opkode.com/contact.html https://opkode.com/contact.html
      - funkaster 8y ago
        I'll make sure to contact you! thanks!
    - Whatitat90 8y ago
      Very cool! I'll definitely watch you home page for new posts. Thank you :)
jeremie 8y ago
I’d say that it feels like just yesterday, but it totally feels like decades ago :) I’m very lucky to still be close with so may of the truly amazing individuals that helped build Jabber, and over the years deeply honored by all those that spoke to me about how it inspired them. While at the surface it may seem like all of our efforts had little impact on the big “messaging silos”, I am most proud of how much Jabber/XMPP has made it easy for anyone to build/host/extend a messaging and presence service. Twenty years ago the concepts and architectures were opaque, now they’re commonplace. Happy Birthday!
- dchote 8y ago
  NEVER FORGET
- elandrum 8y ago
  How crazy is it that we not only know each other in real life because of Jabber, but also work together. :) I have many, many fond memories of hanging out on the old IRCs with the Jabber crew. 20 years! Geeze.
- ge0rg 8y ago
  Hey Jeremie! It's really awesome to have you here! I've tried to dig up some more historical background besides of the Slashdot announcement, but failed. Do you happen to have an old copy of the 1999 changelog / code base (maybe a backup of the CVS or SVN server), just out of historical interest. The archive.org history only goes back to around 2004. Also it's really amazing how far you've been looking into the future back then...
  - dwaite 8y ago
    FWIW, the https://github.com/mawis/jabberd/ https://github.com/mawis/jabberd/ logs go back to 2000.
- motorpsycho 8y ago
  Jeremie, I'm watching your talk about telehash on InfoQ and I wonder what happened to the project? Is it worth pursuing ... ?
motorpsycho 8y ago
Does anyone know what happened to Jeremie Miller's telehash project? The protocol looks promising, but not much happened lately. http://telehash.org http://telehash.org https://www.infoq.com/presentations/A-P2P-Digital-Self-with-TeleHash https://www.infoq.com/presentations/A-P2P-Digital-Self-with-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslYWTOtGpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslYWTOtGpw
Nux 8y ago
We need to move away from Hipchat at work and really wanted to use xmpp, but was super let down by the iOS clients, it can't be used in production. Android - thanks to Cobversations and Xabber, is really ok, PC is ok (Gajim), but we couldn't migrate due to the 3 iOS users in the team. Duplicate msg and all sorts of weird behaviour and errors made it a no go. We ended up with the shitty MS Teams in the end; comes free with our office365, has working notifications across platforms and can do messaging and file transfers without issues. I dream of a future where xmpp is an option. People who have to gain from that: please fix the iOS side of things.
- tracker1 8y ago
  I know it's not open... but I personally really like Teams, especially if you use some of the integrations, wiki and files.
  - therealidiot 8y ago
    I hate it, I find the UI clunky and slow. Most annoying is having to fake an Edge user agent to get incoming calls to work (using Chrome on Ubuntu) but having to use the normal UA at other times as it breaks my messaging history otherwise
sublupo 8y ago
How would you compare xmpp to matrix? Are they both similarly secure, distributed, and open source?
- theamk 8y ago
  From what I see, XMPP is "message delivery" while matrix is " eventually consistent global db with pubsub semantics" The difference becomes relevant when you have multiple or offline devices. XMPP may not deliver messages to some of the devices (for example, if message carbons are not supported by client). Matrix will not drop messages -- it may take some time, but eventually all devices will see all the messages.
marclaporte 8y ago
WikiSuite is full on XMPP. This page explains why XMPP and Openfire, Converse and Pàdé and not all the other options: http://wikisuite.org/Why-Openfire http://wikisuite.org/Why-Openfire
goffi 8y ago
And 20 years later, this is published on an XMPP based blog engine, quite a nice way to celebrate :)

148 points by ge0rg 8y ago

As luck would have it, the XMPP newsletter was also sent out today: https://xmpp.org/2019/01/the-xmpp-newsletter-4-january-2019/ https://xmpp.org/2019/01/the-xmpp-newsletter-4-january-2019/

yosamino 8y ago

I really like that xmpp is experiencing a sort of revival at the moment. Not maybe in terms of user-base, but Conversations for android is really good, on iOS ChatSecure has some issues, but is usable. OTR encryption is being replaced by OMEMO, and that actually works. I can use and try out clients to my hearts content, with messages being synchronized between them. That I can run my own server on prosody or ejabberd is really great as well. And since we're back to "Hey can we you use Signal/Threema/Whatsapp/Viber ?" anyhow, it's actually relatively easy to slide in the next option: "Hmmm, why don't we use ChatSecure ?" Thanks everyone for making it happen.

Whatitat90 8y ago
Conversations reached a point where I can easily install it on my family member phones and they feel it's a "normal" messenger. This doesn't sound like a high bar to reach but surprisingly it didn't happen before (at least for XMPP). Recently a spin-off of Conversations - Quicksy was introduced [0] [1] that makes the entry even easier as it offers phone number-based contact discovery. From my experience people are used to quick on-boardings and don't even want to think about things like "username" and looking for contacts. [0]: https://quicksy.im/ https://quicksy.im/ [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.client https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...
- yosamino 8y ago
  > it didn't happen before (at least for XMPP). It was the niche of niches but the Nokia n900's standard built in xmpp client could do voice/video/filetransfer with a gnome desktop's standard messaging infrastructure (telepathy or something?) in what, like 2010 ? But, besides that, I get what you're saying about "normal" messengers and conversations nowadays. So good. Thanks Mr. Gultsch[0] ! [0] https://gultsch.de/ https://gultsch.de/
  - ppjet6 8y ago
    While I understand the concerns and I appreciate all of what Conversations' author is doing for the community, other clients have also seen significant improvements lately. Gajim[0] has practically come back from the "dead". There is a huge difference, UI/UX-wise but not just, between pre and post 1.0, (1.1 at the time of writing, 1.2 coming). There is also dino[1], a nice and simple desktop client, and converse.js[2], a fast-developing web-client. Movim[3] and Salut-à-Toi[4] are also putting in a lot of work on the social network side. [0]: https://gajim.org https://gajim.org [1]: https://dino.im https://dino.im [2]: https://conversejs.org https://conversejs.org [3]: https://movim.eu https://movim.eu [4]: https://salut-a-toi.org https://salut-a-toi.org Edit: Added conversejs
    - yosamino 8y ago
      For sure! I use gajim as my main Desktop client. And thanks for the link to salut-a-toi, I hadn't heard of it.
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      I still prefer pidgin, but it needs a lot of love to make it a reasonably modern XMPP client: - https://github.com/danielkraic/Pidgin-XEP-0136-plugin https://github.com/danielkraic/Pidgin-XEP-0136-plugin adds XEP-0136 (needs "mam_archive" on prosody) - https://github.com/gkdr/carbons https://github.com/gkdr/carbons adds XEP-0280 (Carbons) - https://github.com/Junker/purple-xmpp-http-upload https://github.com/Junker/purple-xmpp-http-upload adds XEP-363 (HTTP uploads) - https://github.com/gkdr/lurch https://github.com/gkdr/lurch adds XEP-0384 (OMEMO) - https://github.com/noonien-d/pidgin-xmpp-receipts https://github.com/noonien-d/pidgin-xmpp-receipts XEP-0184 (message delivery receipts) The real pain for Pidgin is the complete lack of XEP-313 due to Pidgin's aged logging system, and I would really like to see a working message sync for Pidgin :( EDIT: https://github.com/CkNoSFeRaTU/pidgin https://github.com/CkNoSFeRaTU/pidgin apparently has had XEP-313 patched into Pidgin for years now. Combined with lurch and Carbons, message sync is working fine.
starsinspace 8y ago
I gave Jabber another chance a while ago... using both ChatSecure on the phone and Gajim on the computer (phone+computer logged in on both ends of the conversation). Unfortunately it was a complete failure. Message arrival was flakey. Some messages arrived only on the computer, others only on the phone. Conversations were sometimes one-sided, with one half on phone, other on computer. Not usable for chat. All around, I have to sadly say (after 15+ years of Jabber use) that this is what I'm used to with Jabber, and that I honestly cannot recommend it to friends :-/
- jcbrand 8y ago
  My wife, some of her friends, her parents, my parents and some of my friends all use XMPP. Mostly Conversations and I use Converse.js as well. I haven't received any complaints yet, and I've been hosting the XMPP server which most of us use (since about 2014).
- SamWhited 8y ago
  I haven't seen anything like this in ages; what server and clients were you using? Between the history feature most things support and message carbons you should just get every message everywhere reliably (and that's what happens out of the box for me with most setups).
pgeorgi 8y ago
> on iOS ChatSecure has some issues I was looking into iOS options to recommend to friends and ChatSecure seems rather dormant. https://monal.im https://monal.im however is actively developed and the author is very friendly and responsive.

ppjet6 8y ago

Cake! As I said in another thread, glad to see the community is still active.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Speaking of protocols, aside IPFS, what open protocols have come out in the last 5 years?

jcbrand 8y ago
ActivityPub! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub
Whatitat90 8y ago
Matrix, a competitor to XMPP is 4 years old [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)
motorpsycho 8y ago
matrix dat protocol telehash v3 zot6
ken 8y ago
HTTP/2, though SPDY is a bit older. HTTP/3, though QUIC is a bit older. DNS over HTTPS?

bhhaskin 8y ago

I have been looking into building a XMPP server and client lately. Mainly cause the ones out there aren't super great.

yosamino 8y ago
Is there something you're looking for specifically? Just asking, because xmpp is currently my thing, and some of the interesting bits and tricks sometimes are a bit hidden, but there is lot's of stuff possible that I didn't think would be.
- jcbrand 8y ago
  What XMPP stuff are you currently working on?
  - yosamino 8y ago
    Triaging bugs in ChatSecure without regular access to an iDevice. I am mostly on the admin/user side of things.
jcbrand 8y ago
Before doing that, please consider contributing to an existing project first. There are many out there and they'd love more contributors.
- ape4 8y ago
  Which is the best XMPP server? For the server mentioned here... OpenFire = written in Java Prosody = Lua Ejabberd = Erlang
  - jcbrand 8y ago
    I can't say which is best, I can only say I use Prosody and am very happy with it. Here's a howto on setting it up: https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-server.html https://homebrewserver.club/configuring-a-modern-xmpp-server...

jugg1es 8y ago

I wish Hacker News would do a better job of insulating me from feelings of senescence. This makes me feel damn old.

funkaster 8y ago

This is great news. I'm finishing a messaging app for a non-profit and I decided to use xmpp (openfire) for the backend and it was really a time saver (the full stack is React Native (typescript), ruby (jruby + sinatra for api), openfire for messaging). I really like how easy is to extend and customize xmpp to suit your needs. Here's to another 20 years!

Whatitat90 8y ago
This sounds exciting! But I guess this is closed system and it's not possible to see at least a screenshot?
- funkaster 8y ago
  I can share screenshots for sure. I was thinking of opensourcing the project after it was done, but will need some time to clean it up a bit. I will for sure write a blog post about it when it's done (next few weeks)
  - jcbrand 8y ago
    If you let me know about the blog post, I'll include it in next month's XMPP newsletter. https://xmpp.org/newsletter.html https://xmpp.org/newsletter.html My contact form: https://opkode.com/contact.html https://opkode.com/contact.html
    - funkaster 8y ago
      I'll make sure to contact you! thanks!
  - Whatitat90 8y ago
    Very cool! I'll definitely watch you home page for new posts. Thank you :)

jeremie 8y ago

I’d say that it feels like just yesterday, but it totally feels like decades ago :) I’m very lucky to still be close with so may of the truly amazing individuals that helped build Jabber, and over the years deeply honored by all those that spoke to me about how it inspired them. While at the surface it may seem like all of our efforts had little impact on the big “messaging silos”, I am most proud of how much Jabber/XMPP has made it easy for anyone to build/host/extend a messaging and presence service. Twenty years ago the concepts and architectures were opaque, now they’re commonplace. Happy Birthday!

dchote 8y ago
NEVER FORGET
elandrum 8y ago
How crazy is it that we not only know each other in real life because of Jabber, but also work together. :) I have many, many fond memories of hanging out on the old IRCs with the Jabber crew. 20 years! Geeze.
ge0rg 8y ago
Hey Jeremie! It's really awesome to have you here! I've tried to dig up some more historical background besides of the Slashdot announcement, but failed. Do you happen to have an old copy of the 1999 changelog / code base (maybe a backup of the CVS or SVN server), just out of historical interest. The archive.org history only goes back to around 2004. Also it's really amazing how far you've been looking into the future back then...
- dwaite 8y ago
  FWIW, the https://github.com/mawis/jabberd/ https://github.com/mawis/jabberd/ logs go back to 2000.
motorpsycho 8y ago
Jeremie, I'm watching your talk about telehash on InfoQ and I wonder what happened to the project? Is it worth pursuing ... ?

motorpsycho 8y ago

Does anyone know what happened to Jeremie Miller's telehash project? The protocol looks promising, but not much happened lately. http://telehash.org http://telehash.org https://www.infoq.com/presentations/A-P2P-Digital-Self-with-TeleHash https://www.infoq.com/presentations/A-P2P-Digital-Self-with-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslYWTOtGpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslYWTOtGpw

Nux 8y ago

We need to move away from Hipchat at work and really wanted to use xmpp, but was super let down by the iOS clients, it can't be used in production. Android - thanks to Cobversations and Xabber, is really ok, PC is ok (Gajim), but we couldn't migrate due to the 3 iOS users in the team. Duplicate msg and all sorts of weird behaviour and errors made it a no go. We ended up with the shitty MS Teams in the end; comes free with our office365, has working notifications across platforms and can do messaging and file transfers without issues. I dream of a future where xmpp is an option. People who have to gain from that: please fix the iOS side of things.

tracker1 8y ago
I know it's not open... but I personally really like Teams, especially if you use some of the integrations, wiki and files.
- therealidiot 8y ago
  I hate it, I find the UI clunky and slow. Most annoying is having to fake an Edge user agent to get incoming calls to work (using Chrome on Ubuntu) but having to use the normal UA at other times as it breaks my messaging history otherwise

sublupo 8y ago

How would you compare xmpp to matrix? Are they both similarly secure, distributed, and open source?

theamk 8y ago
From what I see, XMPP is "message delivery" while matrix is " eventually consistent global db with pubsub semantics" The difference becomes relevant when you have multiple or offline devices. XMPP may not deliver messages to some of the devices (for example, if message carbons are not supported by client). Matrix will not drop messages -- it may take some time, but eventually all devices will see all the messages.

marclaporte 8y ago

WikiSuite is full on XMPP. This page explains why XMPP and Openfire, Converse and Pàdé and not all the other options: http://wikisuite.org/Why-Openfire http://wikisuite.org/Why-Openfire

goffi 8y ago

And 20 years later, this is published on an XMPP based blog engine, quite a nice way to celebrate :)