3 ms·

(Quiet founder here) We love XMPP and IRC, but both IRC and XMPP require servers, and most people don't have a server or even a friend who has a server, so the

(Quiet founder here) We love XMPP and IRC, but both IRC and XMPP require servers, and most people don't have a server or even a friend who has a server, so they depend on Google, Facebook, etc. There may be work in the XMPP space on a pure p2p XMPP, but based on my conversations with folks in the (awesome) XMPP scene last year at FOSDEM, it was pretty experimental and there were major problems they hadn't tackled yet, like identity. Quiet is an effort to make a chat app that works well out of the box without depending on a server (or a company.) This feels new, different, and helpful to the world right now! And achieving this goal feels worth loading a few MB of dependencies or even (gasp! wince!) Electron :)

MattJ100 3y ago
I remember chatting with you at FOSDEM (Snikket dev here). Congratulations on the launch! Generally I agree that the goals of Quiet are sufficiently different to the way XMPP is used/deployed today that your entirely different stack is warranted. While people do use XMPP with Tor today, and I'd like to add native Tor support to Snikket at some point, I don't envision that ever working the way Quiet does. Nevertheless, an XMPP<->Quiet bridge would be a fun project for someone, some day :)
kkfx 3y ago
Thanks for sharing them :-) > most people don't have a server or even a friend who has a server, That's wrong from my point of view. In the past, in the dialup era that's normal, but we are in the fiber optic broadband era, at least in vast part of the world who are essentially the parts where IT is developed and used, so it's wrong not to have an IPv6 static global per device, it's wrong not having a domain name per human being, at least per Netizen. Correcting this is anyway needed because even with modern connections distributed solutions have too much overhead, too little performances to be generally used. Having a homeserver, a direct connection with own devices, from cars to "smart" water heater should be normal for those who want it, normal without intermediaries but still with server, we need to know our infra. Building giant tools to circumvent actual state of things is technically fascinating, give end user a friendly UI is remarkable but it does not really solve the background problem: giants services will be much more performant. On contrary no giant can offer something more effective than a direct connected services for any user, from a single device with data and logic and UI on it, to LAN to generic P2P connection without extra overhead. As a small example no VoIP services can be faster in my LAN than my local softphones/deskphones talking each others. No GMail alike service can search faster than my local notmuch-emacs on local maildirs. No file sharing services to exchange a file can be faster than a direct connection between someone else and me, at the maximum extreme they can be nearly equivalent. At least, that's my vision: no chance to win competing with big & powerful on such tech, some chances pushing a local first, wide open connection between peers for the rest because users are needed, but nerd, people who know what they use is even more needed to start, just understanding IPFS from it's code and "docs" is challenging, understanding IRC is far simpler.

MattJ100 3y ago

I remember chatting with you at FOSDEM (Snikket dev here). Congratulations on the launch! Generally I agree that the goals of Quiet are sufficiently different to the way XMPP is used/deployed today that your entirely different stack is warranted. While people do use XMPP with Tor today, and I'd like to add native Tor support to Snikket at some point, I don't envision that ever working the way Quiet does. Nevertheless, an XMPP<->Quiet bridge would be a fun project for someone, some day :)

kkfx 3y ago

Thanks for sharing them :-) > most people don't have a server or even a friend who has a server, That's wrong from my point of view. In the past, in the dialup era that's normal, but we are in the fiber optic broadband era, at least in vast part of the world who are essentially the parts where IT is developed and used, so it's wrong not to have an IPv6 static global per device, it's wrong not having a domain name per human being, at least per Netizen. Correcting this is anyway needed because even with modern connections distributed solutions have too much overhead, too little performances to be generally used. Having a homeserver, a direct connection with own devices, from cars to "smart" water heater should be normal for those who want it, normal without intermediaries but still with server, we need to know our infra. Building giant tools to circumvent actual state of things is technically fascinating, give end user a friendly UI is remarkable but it does not really solve the background problem: giants services will be much more performant. On contrary no giant can offer something more effective than a direct connected services for any user, from a single device with data and logic and UI on it, to LAN to generic P2P connection without extra overhead. As a small example no VoIP services can be faster in my LAN than my local softphones/deskphones talking each others. No GMail alike service can search faster than my local notmuch-emacs on local maildirs. No file sharing services to exchange a file can be faster than a direct connection between someone else and me, at the maximum extreme they can be nearly equivalent. At least, that's my vision: no chance to win competing with big & powerful on such tech, some chances pushing a local first, wide open connection between peers for the rest because users are needed, but nerd, people who know what they use is even more needed to start, just understanding IPFS from it's code and "docs" is challenging, understanding IRC is far simpler.