4 ms·

What went wrong with XMPP and federated servers?

by notorandit 6y ago

Kototama 6y ago
The UX.
- berkes 6y ago
  And encryption, which is an addon and not the default. Also, XMPP is a good example of a 'victim' of embrace, extend, extinguish. I remember Facebook messenger, hyves chat, Google talk and briefly even WhatsApp, all in my desktop chat app. They all 'did' XMPP, but then removed federation, features or killed it entirely.
w1nk 6y ago
XMPP never got its story together for mobile clients. Sure there are some configurations of XEPs that will eventually allow you a reasonable configuration that supports multi device, history, media, etc, but for whatever reason, gluing those pieces together into something sane has evaded our community.
- MattJ100 6y ago
  > for whatever reason, gluing those pieces together into something sane has evaded our community. Actually this is exactly what Snikket is doing: https://snikket.org/about/goals https://snikket.org/about/goals But in fact most servers are mobile friendly, and have been for many years. You can dig into the data at https://compliance.conversations.im/ https://compliance.conversations.im/ (Conversations being the leading mobile XMPP client).
- upofadown 6y ago
  In particular it never got its story together for iOS. ... and macOS more recently. It is quite good, on say, Android (Conversations). Rumour has it that XMPP is a lot more popular in parts of the world where Apple stuff is less popular. Those tens of thousands of XMPP servers are probably in those parts of the world. There is an active project working to improve things on the Apple side: * https://monal.im/ https://monal.im/
  - MattJ100 6y ago
    Monal is active and improving, but I think Siskin has a slight edge right now: https://siskin.im/ https://siskin.im/ (Siskin's macOS sibling is https://beagle.im/ https://beagle.im/ ).
f1refly 6y ago
Doesn't make any money. You can obviously use xmpp instead of joining the next silo.
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  Signal doesn't make any money.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Signal got $50M from Brian Acton.
    - FDSGSG 6y ago
      XSF gets donations too
      - pseudalopex 6y ago
        I don't think they ever got close to $50M.
pseudalopex 6y ago
Nothing on Windows had voice and video for a long time but Google Talk. More and more people used Google Talk and Facebook. Facebook never federated. Good mobile support took a long time. Google defederated. Facebook and Google cut off other clients.
- notorandit 6y ago
  I wish I knew the reasons...

What went wrong with XMPP and federated servers?

Kototama 6y ago

The UX.

berkes 6y ago
And encryption, which is an addon and not the default. Also, XMPP is a good example of a 'victim' of embrace, extend, extinguish. I remember Facebook messenger, hyves chat, Google talk and briefly even WhatsApp, all in my desktop chat app. They all 'did' XMPP, but then removed federation, features or killed it entirely.

w1nk 6y ago

XMPP never got its story together for mobile clients. Sure there are some configurations of XEPs that will eventually allow you a reasonable configuration that supports multi device, history, media, etc, but for whatever reason, gluing those pieces together into something sane has evaded our community.

MattJ100 6y ago
> for whatever reason, gluing those pieces together into something sane has evaded our community. Actually this is exactly what Snikket is doing: https://snikket.org/about/goals https://snikket.org/about/goals But in fact most servers are mobile friendly, and have been for many years. You can dig into the data at https://compliance.conversations.im/ https://compliance.conversations.im/ (Conversations being the leading mobile XMPP client).
upofadown 6y ago
In particular it never got its story together for iOS. ... and macOS more recently. It is quite good, on say, Android (Conversations). Rumour has it that XMPP is a lot more popular in parts of the world where Apple stuff is less popular. Those tens of thousands of XMPP servers are probably in those parts of the world. There is an active project working to improve things on the Apple side: * https://monal.im/ https://monal.im/
- MattJ100 6y ago
  Monal is active and improving, but I think Siskin has a slight edge right now: https://siskin.im/ https://siskin.im/ (Siskin's macOS sibling is https://beagle.im/ https://beagle.im/ ).

f1refly 6y ago

Doesn't make any money. You can obviously use xmpp instead of joining the next silo.

FDSGSG 6y ago
Signal doesn't make any money.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Signal got $50M from Brian Acton.
  - FDSGSG 6y ago
    XSF gets donations too
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      I don't think they ever got close to $50M.

pseudalopex 6y ago

Nothing on Windows had voice and video for a long time but Google Talk. More and more people used Google Talk and Facebook. Facebook never federated. Good mobile support took a long time. Google defederated. Facebook and Google cut off other clients.

notorandit 6y ago
I wish I knew the reasons...