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Because there isn't a standard. The point is each one implements their own protocol instead of adapting a standard such as Matrix or XMPP. (Whether any suitable

Because there isn't a standard. The point is each one implements their own protocol instead of adapting a standard such as Matrix or XMPP. (Whether any suitable standard exists (much less existed in 2012!) is another issue, but regardless it's fair to say that the current state of things is not ideal.)

duped 5y ago
I don't think "whether any suitable standard exists" is another issue, it's the exact one. If you're building a product and there is no standard to cover core technology, you roll your own because it's faster than waiting for someone else to invent one. But that said I don't think "using a standard protocol" is a value in and of itself.
- jlkuester7 5y ago
  > But that said I don't think "using a standard protocol" is a value in and of itself. Standard protocols are very valuable if you care about reach while avoiding vendor-lock-in. I want to be able to self-host my server (or pay someone to host it for me), but I also want to be able to communicate with people on other servers. It is that balance of control and networking that is really powerful. Someone else mentioned here about how FHIR uses Zulip as the group chat for their community. That is great! But, to participate, you need an account on their instance and then if you want to participate in multiple Zulip instances you either need multiple clients or some kind of multi-instance support in your client. And then you still have to manage separate profiles for each instance, etc, etc... OTOH, a bunch of open source projects use Matrix instances for their community chat rooms. One of the huge benefits I see from that is that I can use my single Matrix account (on the server that I host) to join all the different communities that I am interested in. (And now with the new Spaces feature in Element, there is even better controls over being able to still retain a separation of concerns between all the different conversations I am a part of...)
- zaik 5y ago
  > If you're building a product and there is no standard to cover core technology That's what the X in XMPP is for.

duped 5y ago

I don't think "whether any suitable standard exists" is another issue, it's the exact one. If you're building a product and there is no standard to cover core technology, you roll your own because it's faster than waiting for someone else to invent one. But that said I don't think "using a standard protocol" is a value in and of itself.

jlkuester7 5y ago
> But that said I don't think "using a standard protocol" is a value in and of itself. Standard protocols are very valuable if you care about reach while avoiding vendor-lock-in. I want to be able to self-host my server (or pay someone to host it for me), but I also want to be able to communicate with people on other servers. It is that balance of control and networking that is really powerful. Someone else mentioned here about how FHIR uses Zulip as the group chat for their community. That is great! But, to participate, you need an account on their instance and then if you want to participate in multiple Zulip instances you either need multiple clients or some kind of multi-instance support in your client. And then you still have to manage separate profiles for each instance, etc, etc... OTOH, a bunch of open source projects use Matrix instances for their community chat rooms. One of the huge benefits I see from that is that I can use my single Matrix account (on the server that I host) to join all the different communities that I am interested in. (And now with the new Spaces feature in Element, there is even better controls over being able to still retain a separation of concerns between all the different conversations I am a part of...)
zaik 5y ago
> If you're building a product and there is no standard to cover core technology That's what the X in XMPP is for.