7 ms·

A free XMPP server powered with green energy

67 points by Funes- 7y ago

todo218 7y ago
Data center trashserver no used green energe
dqybh 7y ago
Hosted in Germany... Not good for privacy. Or free speech.
- jeroenhd 7y ago
  How is Germany bad for free privacy or speech? Any location out of easy reach for China and the NSA is a plus for me.
  - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
    Because it doesn't have free speech. You can't even make nazi jokes or say stuff that could be considered racist, xenophobic or disgusting in general.
    - fock 7y ago
      that's a fine line between liberal free speech (where you have to stick to facts and are hold accountable by the society if you actively are undermining its foundations) and libertarian free spech (where there is no society)
      - dqybh 7y ago
        Free speech is an absolute. Germany doesn't have it. That's all there is to it.
      - zaarn 7y ago
        Personally I prefer to distinguish between freedom of opinion and freedom of speech (the former is what is closer to what the german constitution actually says in german, to some degree). It's more explicit about what I think should be the standard instead of total free speech. So in that view, yeah, my country doesn't have free speech. We have free opinions.
    - servercobra 7y ago
      Does anywhere have completely free speech? The U.S. has a whole host of limitations on it[0], despite it being protected by the First Amendment, as does every country I can think of. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
      - int_19h 7y ago
        Completely free, no. But there are substantial differences. The limitations in US are far less than any other developed country, particularly when you account for the process (e.g. standard of scrutiny necessary to overcome 1A protection in court). This is especially true when it comes to political speech, which is considered to be the prime target for 1A protection. In Germany, whole categories of political speech are explicitly censored, and I'm not even talking about stuff like Holocaust denial. For example, a party can be banned for having a platform that contradicts "liberal democratic basic order". And even informal networks of people can be categorized as "associations" and banned in this manner.
unicornporn 7y ago
Used this server a little over a year ago or so. Worked well with https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/. Nowadays I can't come up with any good reason to use XMPP since there's Matrix and https://riot.im/ https://riot.im/ XMPP has adapted over time to support various chat and instant messaging features that we today take for granted. These adaptions come in the form of Extensions/XEP. I remember spending two hours with a geek friend to configure something that resembles what we get from any other instant messenger today (working across multiple devices). Meanwhile, Matrix just works. Granted, UX involved with the key management associated with E2EE was not what it should have been. But, that has largely been fixed in v1.0. Wouldn't spend the time to get into XMPP, if I didn't already have a decent network of friends there. And yeah, there's a XMPP/Matrix bridge available if you decide to go Matrix. https://matrix.org/docs/projects/as/matrix-xmpp-bridge.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/as/matrix-xmpp-bridge.html
- neilalexander 7y ago
  Matrix just about replaces my need for other services like IRC and XMPP too, helped in part by the various bridges available. Plus Matrix doesn’t suffer from problems with client state like IRC and XMPP do, which is very beneficial on mobile devices or unreliable networks.
- Whatitat90 7y ago
  It's interesting that you compare Riot with Conversations as Conversations feels and looks much better to me (native UI) while Riot for Android always gave me the webapp feel. But Riot works consistently on all OSes while Conversations (in my opinion the best free/federated messenger to date) is available only on Android.
  - Arathorn 7y ago
    Riot/Android is a completely native app, but it grew pretty organically and is far from perfect. We're in the final stages of replacing it with a rewrite in Kotlin nicknamed RiotX, which should be unrecognisably better: https://github.com/vector-im/riotX-android https://github.com/vector-im/riotX-android.
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
I'd love to know more about how the server is run on exclusively green energy.
- wolfi1 7y ago
  in Germany it is possible to buy electricity from utilities who have just renewables in their energy mix
  - kermitismyhero 7y ago
    Strangely enough, there's the same sort of renewables-only electricity choices in oil-obsessed Alberta, Canada. The city of Calgary's rail transit system runs solely on electricity purchased from wind farms.
dang 7y ago
Discussed last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068772

67 points by Funes- 7y ago

todo218 7y ago

Data center trashserver no used green energe

dqybh 7y ago

Hosted in Germany... Not good for privacy. Or free speech.

jeroenhd 7y ago
How is Germany bad for free privacy or speech? Any location out of easy reach for China and the NSA is a plus for me.
- lone_haxx0r 7y ago
  Because it doesn't have free speech. You can't even make nazi jokes or say stuff that could be considered racist, xenophobic or disgusting in general.
  - fock 7y ago
    that's a fine line between liberal free speech (where you have to stick to facts and are hold accountable by the society if you actively are undermining its foundations) and libertarian free spech (where there is no society)
    - dqybh 7y ago
      Free speech is an absolute. Germany doesn't have it. That's all there is to it.
    - zaarn 7y ago
      Personally I prefer to distinguish between freedom of opinion and freedom of speech (the former is what is closer to what the german constitution actually says in german, to some degree). It's more explicit about what I think should be the standard instead of total free speech. So in that view, yeah, my country doesn't have free speech. We have free opinions.
  - servercobra 7y ago
    Does anywhere have completely free speech? The U.S. has a whole host of limitations on it[0], despite it being protected by the First Amendment, as does every country I can think of. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
    - int_19h 7y ago
      Completely free, no. But there are substantial differences. The limitations in US are far less than any other developed country, particularly when you account for the process (e.g. standard of scrutiny necessary to overcome 1A protection in court). This is especially true when it comes to political speech, which is considered to be the prime target for 1A protection. In Germany, whole categories of political speech are explicitly censored, and I'm not even talking about stuff like Holocaust denial. For example, a party can be banned for having a platform that contradicts "liberal democratic basic order". And even informal networks of people can be categorized as "associations" and banned in this manner.

unicornporn 7y ago

Used this server a little over a year ago or so. Worked well with https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/. Nowadays I can't come up with any good reason to use XMPP since there's Matrix and https://riot.im/ https://riot.im/ XMPP has adapted over time to support various chat and instant messaging features that we today take for granted. These adaptions come in the form of Extensions/XEP. I remember spending two hours with a geek friend to configure something that resembles what we get from any other instant messenger today (working across multiple devices). Meanwhile, Matrix just works. Granted, UX involved with the key management associated with E2EE was not what it should have been. But, that has largely been fixed in v1.0. Wouldn't spend the time to get into XMPP, if I didn't already have a decent network of friends there. And yeah, there's a XMPP/Matrix bridge available if you decide to go Matrix. https://matrix.org/docs/projects/as/matrix-xmpp-bridge.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/as/matrix-xmpp-bridge.html

neilalexander 7y ago
Matrix just about replaces my need for other services like IRC and XMPP too, helped in part by the various bridges available. Plus Matrix doesn’t suffer from problems with client state like IRC and XMPP do, which is very beneficial on mobile devices or unreliable networks.
Whatitat90 7y ago
It's interesting that you compare Riot with Conversations as Conversations feels and looks much better to me (native UI) while Riot for Android always gave me the webapp feel. But Riot works consistently on all OSes while Conversations (in my opinion the best free/federated messenger to date) is available only on Android.
- Arathorn 7y ago
  Riot/Android is a completely native app, but it grew pretty organically and is far from perfect. We're in the final stages of replacing it with a rewrite in Kotlin nicknamed RiotX, which should be unrecognisably better: https://github.com/vector-im/riotX-android https://github.com/vector-im/riotX-android.

Lowkeyloki 7y ago

I'd love to know more about how the server is run on exclusively green energy.

wolfi1 7y ago
in Germany it is possible to buy electricity from utilities who have just renewables in their energy mix
- kermitismyhero 7y ago
  Strangely enough, there's the same sort of renewables-only electricity choices in oil-obsessed Alberta, Canada. The city of Calgary's rail transit system runs solely on electricity purchased from wind farms.

dang 7y ago

Discussed last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17068772