Re: GNOME Chat and the future of instant messaging in gnome

[Bastián Díaz <diaz bastian openmailbox org>]

El 11-11-2015 05:12, Daniel Pocock escribió:

> Charles Johnson wrote:
>
> > Wow... this looks very interesting topic, see 
> > https://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2015-April/msg00050.html 
> > [1] I think there's an important point here. Consider that messaging 
> > is still used and protocols should be prioritized over others. Have 
> > many protocols in the same application is very useful, but now is not 
> > a priority, many popular messaging system are integrated into the 
> > website like facebook, Hangouts or Skype.
>
> For some people, those services you mention don't exist because they 
> are
> not based on open standards or free software and the only difference
> between those products and a trojan is that the trojan doesn't ask the
> user to agree to a privacy policy giving up all their personal data.

That is a reality that must be considered. I think a new twist to a 
client based on open source protocols RTC can make a difference.
Redeployments have to see how XMPP client on Android, provide the user 
interfaces and features that offer popular messaging systems - as 
Whatsapp -, coupled with increased security (OTR) and capabilities for 
audio/video (voice message feature), etc.


> > So I think 3 protocols must be strengthened and supported in 
> > gnome-chat:
>
> It is not just about chat: it is viable for voice and video too. I have
> used Empathy for many webcam calls with XMPP users.

Gnome-chat is proposed name for an application for RTC in gnome: 
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Chat
Voice and video is central in communications today.

> > SIP: ReSIProcate is a recent project that enhances SIP support and 
> > plans to be used with Telepathy: 
> > https://www.resiprocate.org/Telepathy_Connection_Manager
>
> This actually offers an opportunity to leap-frog many of the other
> clients. There are two parts to this:
>
> a) get reSIProcate working with Telepathy: this brings the benefit of
> having a well-maintained SIP stack, with comprehensive support for
> things like IPv6 and TLS (other SIP stacks don't cover those very well)
>
> b) adapting reSIProcate itself to use libjingle as the media stack.
> This will let it inter-operate with WebRTC, e.g. anybody in a browser
> will be able to call a GNOME desktop user.
>
> The combination of these things will make it work reliably in many more
> situations and make a very, very compelling solution. E.g. the TLS
> support helps get SIP through NAT and the WebRTC media stack has many
> ways to get the audio and video through NAT.
>
> Hundreds of millions of people have already updated their browsers to
> versions that support WebRTC, being able to interact with them directly
> from GNOME would be amazing.

That sounds great as a development opportunity.

> > XMPP/Jingle: Free messaging by definition. It includes Gabble and 
> > Salut.

> > Telegram: New protocol, multi-platform, open source and very safe. 
> > There are some related projects: 
> > >>https://github.com/majn/telegram-purple [3] https://github.com/TelepathyQt/telepathy-morse [4]
> > These three protocols can be a solid base to offer chat services 
> > gnome. There are other protocols supported in >>Telepathy, but may be 
> > offered externally depending on user/business requirements (groupwise, 
> > sametime, silc and >>zephyr)
>
> It is a chicken-and-egg problem. Once the underlying protocols are
> stronger, there will be more incentive to improve the Empathy UI or 
> make
> an alternative. Therefore, my suggestion is to start with the
> underlying protocols and infrastructure to support them.
>
> With that in mind, I have already deployed SIP services such as
> https://rtc.debian.org [5] (for Debian) and https://fedrtc.org [6] (for 
> Fedora)
> and would be happy to help setup a similar service for gnome.org. The
> RTC Quick Start Guide is also provided as a free resource to help more
> communities do this.

Is that something that benefits the user?

> One other thing to keep in mind: when I suggested that Debian needs to
> look at the default RTC (chat, voice and video) client, several people
> responded "leave it to the GNOME package maintainers". But if GNOME is
> not currently accepting responsibility for Empathy (as the message from
> April suggests), then it means nobody is showing leadership at all in
> this space, Debian is looking to GNOME and GNOME is looking to 
> something
> as yet undefined.

I agree. Gnome 3 in the beginning had a strong integration with IM 
systems. However, over time this has been set aside, and developed an 
excellent IM application to the IRC protocol is most commonly used for 
communication between developers (among other things).

A new application or empathy, refocused on the use of SIP/SIMPLE and 
XMPP/Jingle protocols, may be the best solution for GNOME RTC.

Other protocols mentioned here require some more attention to their 
actual adoption. (as telegram or tox).

Note: Do not forget another alternative being updated, as Ekiga. 
http://blog.ekiga.net/?p=201

Cheers

---
Bastián Díaz
https://telegram.me/diazbastian