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For the record XMPP supports mobile, does not lose messages when you go offline, and has archives. I'm yet to see an open-source implementation of server-side s

For the record XMPP supports mobile, does not lose messages when you go offline, and has archives. I'm yet to see an open-source implementation of server-side search, but most clients can search local history. It's probable that either your experience with XMPP was some years ago, or if more recently that your deployment was simply not up to date with more recent features.

theamk 5y ago
Yes, this was a while ago, but while protocol may support all sorts of fancy stuff, many client's don't. For example, I used to use "pidgin" to connect to XMPP server. Our product runs on Ubuntu 18.04, which means most developer PCs run the same, which means I'd get pidgin 2.12 by default. Does it has all those features? I bet no. (In fact, just because I was curious, I tried to determine if the latest version of pidgin supports "do not lose messages when offline" feature... It looks community decided XEP-0313 is the way to go here, but according to https://issues.imfreedom.org/issue/PIDGIN-15653 https://issues.imfreedom.org/issue/PIDGIN-15653 pidgin does not support it) So please don't say things like "XMPP does not lose messages when you go offline" -- because plenty of things which call themself "XMPP" do. Instead, the correct phrase is: "By carefully selecting XMPP clients and servers, you can end up with configuration which does not lose offline messages"
- MattJ100 5y ago
  Oh, sure. Pidgin has (unintentionally) done a lot of harm to XMPP in the past decade. It was a wildly popular client "back in the day", and even today it's still often the only open-source IM app that comes to peoples' minds. However the project in general has had a general lack of resources for many years. Needless to say it did not keep up with the changing times. There's some renewed momentum in Pidgin recently, and I have hope that the situation will improve. But it is very far from a suitable recommendation for modern featureful messaging at this point.
  - theamk 5y ago
    I don't think it's just pidgin. Let's pretend I want to get started on XMPP -- I just did "apt search xmpp".. my first results were coyim -- cannot find xep-0313 support, but [0] seems to indicate no? dino-im -- HEAD supports xep-0313 but Ubuntu's repo has "0.0.git20180130"... from [1] I think it should be fine too? ekg2-jabbel "0.4~pre+20120506.1" -- looks dead, but based on date, I guess no support empathy (part of GNOME): seems like no support? [2] So... 1/4 for initial sample. And I've had to resort to looking at source code in some cases to determine if this exists or not. Let's not blame pidgin -- most existing XMPP clients do not have offline message support. And if you want to set up a functional XMPP chat system, you have to start by reading forums and then do a bunch of manual compatibility tests on each platform you care about, as there is no guide anywhere on https://xmpp.org https://xmpp.org or any other official-looking places I could find. So it's no wonder that people choose Slack. Sure, it is primarily a web app, and the client is atrocious, but at least I am 100% sure that when my bot posts an report with an image and some buttons, everyone will be able to see and interact with that. [0] https://github.com/coyim/coyim/search?q=0313&type=commits https://github.com/coyim/coyim/search?q=0313&type=commits [1] https://github.com/dino/dino/commits/76e425ed2705349b201444e78719896419862b00/xmpp-vala/src/module/xep/0313_message_archive_management.vala https://github.com/dino/dino/commits/76e425ed2705349b201444e... [2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/telepathy/telepathy-spec/-/issues/36 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/telepathy/telepathy-spec/-/is...
    - MattJ100 5y ago
      Well, this is a good demonstration of the "products vs protocols" issue that I actually wrote a blog post about: https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/ https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/ Much has been said about the staleness (or "stability") of Linux distro repositories. There's a reason you can't 'apt install slack', and this is one of them - many of the packages you quoted are years out of date. Secondly, there are a great many things that implement XMPP, and not all of them are suitable Slack replacements. It's unreasonable to expect that they would be (just like not everything that implements HTTP is suitable to use for daily browsing of the web). XMPP is similarly a protocol, not a product. To be clear I'm not saying it's your fault for starting with an "apt search", without a better idea of where else to start. That's part of the reason I'm advocating a slightly more product-led approach for XMPP these days. I'm personally focusing Snikket on personal messaging right now, so it's not a Slack replacement ( https://snikket.org/about/goals/ https://snikket.org/about/goals/ ). Luckily there are many open-source Slack alternatives these days (Rocket Chat, Mattermost, Element/Synapse). I think XMPP is further behind in this market. An XMPP-based solution would do well to use Converse.js or Movim, but that still leaves a whole lot of backend setup to deal with. For a custom solution with custom requirements it's great to have these composable building blocks available, but for a simple setup and onboarding experience, you're right - registering at slack.com wins hands-down :)

theamk 5y ago

Yes, this was a while ago, but while protocol may support all sorts of fancy stuff, many client's don't. For example, I used to use "pidgin" to connect to XMPP server. Our product runs on Ubuntu 18.04, which means most developer PCs run the same, which means I'd get pidgin 2.12 by default. Does it has all those features? I bet no. (In fact, just because I was curious, I tried to determine if the latest version of pidgin supports "do not lose messages when offline" feature... It looks community decided XEP-0313 is the way to go here, but according to https://issues.imfreedom.org/issue/PIDGIN-15653 https://issues.imfreedom.org/issue/PIDGIN-15653 pidgin does not support it) So please don't say things like "XMPP does not lose messages when you go offline" -- because plenty of things which call themself "XMPP" do. Instead, the correct phrase is: "By carefully selecting XMPP clients and servers, you can end up with configuration which does not lose offline messages"

MattJ100 5y ago
Oh, sure. Pidgin has (unintentionally) done a lot of harm to XMPP in the past decade. It was a wildly popular client "back in the day", and even today it's still often the only open-source IM app that comes to peoples' minds. However the project in general has had a general lack of resources for many years. Needless to say it did not keep up with the changing times. There's some renewed momentum in Pidgin recently, and I have hope that the situation will improve. But it is very far from a suitable recommendation for modern featureful messaging at this point.
- theamk 5y ago
  I don't think it's just pidgin. Let's pretend I want to get started on XMPP -- I just did "apt search xmpp".. my first results were coyim -- cannot find xep-0313 support, but [0] seems to indicate no? dino-im -- HEAD supports xep-0313 but Ubuntu's repo has "0.0.git20180130"... from [1] I think it should be fine too? ekg2-jabbel "0.4~pre+20120506.1" -- looks dead, but based on date, I guess no support empathy (part of GNOME): seems like no support? [2] So... 1/4 for initial sample. And I've had to resort to looking at source code in some cases to determine if this exists or not. Let's not blame pidgin -- most existing XMPP clients do not have offline message support. And if you want to set up a functional XMPP chat system, you have to start by reading forums and then do a bunch of manual compatibility tests on each platform you care about, as there is no guide anywhere on https://xmpp.org https://xmpp.org or any other official-looking places I could find. So it's no wonder that people choose Slack. Sure, it is primarily a web app, and the client is atrocious, but at least I am 100% sure that when my bot posts an report with an image and some buttons, everyone will be able to see and interact with that. [0] https://github.com/coyim/coyim/search?q=0313&type=commits https://github.com/coyim/coyim/search?q=0313&type=commits [1] https://github.com/dino/dino/commits/76e425ed2705349b201444e78719896419862b00/xmpp-vala/src/module/xep/0313_message_archive_management.vala https://github.com/dino/dino/commits/76e425ed2705349b201444e... [2] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/telepathy/telepathy-spec/-/issues/36 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/telepathy/telepathy-spec/-/is...
  - MattJ100 5y ago
    Well, this is a good demonstration of the "products vs protocols" issue that I actually wrote a blog post about: https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/ https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/ Much has been said about the staleness (or "stability") of Linux distro repositories. There's a reason you can't 'apt install slack', and this is one of them - many of the packages you quoted are years out of date. Secondly, there are a great many things that implement XMPP, and not all of them are suitable Slack replacements. It's unreasonable to expect that they would be (just like not everything that implements HTTP is suitable to use for daily browsing of the web). XMPP is similarly a protocol, not a product. To be clear I'm not saying it's your fault for starting with an "apt search", without a better idea of where else to start. That's part of the reason I'm advocating a slightly more product-led approach for XMPP these days. I'm personally focusing Snikket on personal messaging right now, so it's not a Slack replacement ( https://snikket.org/about/goals/ https://snikket.org/about/goals/ ). Luckily there are many open-source Slack alternatives these days (Rocket Chat, Mattermost, Element/Synapse). I think XMPP is further behind in this market. An XMPP-based solution would do well to use Converse.js or Movim, but that still leaves a whole lot of backend setup to deal with. For a custom solution with custom requirements it's great to have these composable building blocks available, but for a simple setup and onboarding experience, you're right - registering at slack.com wins hands-down :)