Post AxqGWP2J5iwaxWlD2e by adam@toot.nels.onl
 (DIR) More posts by adam@toot.nels.onl
 (DIR) Post #AxqGWP2J5iwaxWlD2e by adam@toot.nels.onl
       2025-09-03T21:37:02Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       Are you looking for a better approach to federated chat than #Matrix or #XMPP? I'm working on #Chatterbox, a simple, straightforward federated chat protocol that, ideally, will be more user-friendly (and developer-friendly) than either.https://adam.nels.onl/blog/chatterbox-federated-chat-that-doesnt-suck/The blog post links to a gist with the full API specification, in a single well-commented Protobuf file.I'm working on a reference server that should be available soon. Follow the hashtag if you're interested in updates.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqGWQIIPlKOrPFUbQ by wjmaggos@liberal.city
       2025-09-03T21:46:31Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @adam I use matrix and am ok with it. but imo we need something that everyone understands as being FOR GROUPS. fedi is universalist even though you get to it via separate servers. those are portals, not communities. but we also need tech for communities that isn't locked up with meta or discord or subreddits. it kinda needs to do it all well and in an ideal world, let us use our fedi account to access it. sorry. /rant
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqH3bYNZbQVKxaskq by adam@toot.nels.onl
       2025-09-03T21:52:33Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @wjmaggos Yeah I've considered ActivityPub-based chat but AP is a complicated API and there wouldn't be any existing software that's compatible with it beyond DMs. (and even DMs are inconsistent! Mastodon handles them differently than Pleroma, etc.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqJkVDxBJgk4Dcga0 by silverpill@mitra.social
       2025-09-03T22:22:24.134527Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @adam @wjmaggos I've seen several projects that attempted to do chats on ActivityPub, the newest one is https://github.com/MaddyUnderStars/shoot. This is older and has E2EE: https://gitlab.com/enigmatick/enigmatick-core (at least for DMs).DMs are quite consistent, by the way. Pleroma is an outlier, because they tried to reinvent the wheel with ChatMessage, but it supports Note DMs too.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqKcTOcC6Lq2ELRjs by light@noc.social
       2025-09-03T22:09:03Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @adam What does this offer over XMPP?
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqKcUcTe329pVq1z6 by adam@toot.nels.onl
       2025-09-03T22:11:49Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @light Consistency and a full feature set without optional add-ons.Most of XMPP's features, even really basic ones like chat history, are optional enhancements that only some clients support. Different clients' views of the same server can be drastically different. And all of those accumulated specs make XMPP difficult to pick up and work with; one of my biggest goals with Chatterbox is developer-friendliness, hence the whole API being in one Protobuf file.
       
 (DIR) Post #AxqKcVL8xylM42jhbc by taylan@fedi.feministwiki.org
       2025-09-03T22:32:44.655697Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @adam @light Just thinking out loud:Several modern XMPP servers and clients are like 90% there: eJabberd (server), Gajim (desktop client), Conversations (mobile client)Using these I barely have any issues, though they could still be improved further. The only "major" issue off the top of my head is: Chat history not shared between clients when using encryption. This may down to how OMEMO works at a fundamental level; I'm not sure. Distributed encrypted chat is, to my understanding, notoriously difficult.(Another great mobile client is Xabber Android but sadly the developer decided against adding OMEMO: https://github.com/redsolution/xabber-android/issues/540 )I wonder if it would be a better idea to take XMPP and a set of XEPs, maybe add another new XEP or two to the mix, or a specific interpretation of existing XEPs, and then simply declare this conglomerate of "XMPP base + specific set of XEPs [+ specific interpretation of XEPs and/or new XEPs]" to be a new "protocol" of sorts.This would presumably be much easier to accomplish and have a higher chance of widespread adoption, than to create an entirely new protocol.In any case I wish you good luck if you stick with the idea of an entirely new protocol. Maybe you'll be the one to revolutionize chat.