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by scrollaway 1732 days ago
Closed IM protocols aren’t standards so this doesn’t really apply. There’s only three realistic “standards” in instant messaging: irc, xmpp and matrix. IRC is essentially dead, xmpp is on its last leg and mostly irrelevant, and matrix is very promising just not popular enough yet.
3 comments
tapoxi 1731 days ago
XMPP is widely deployed and it's the backbone of WhatsApp, you don't see a lot of servers that openly federate XMPP because there's little business incentive to do so.
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scrollaway 1731 days ago
Xmpp can continue being a server side protocol all you want, it doesn’t make it a user facing protocol. So in terms of federated or at least cross compatible IM clients it’s irrelevant.
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rohithkp 1731 days ago
Doesn't Apple implement XMPP for iMessage as well?
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zaik 1732 days ago
> xmpp is on its last leg

Why? Unlike Matrix it's actually an Internet Standard.

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grandpoobah 1731 days ago
It's had about 20 years to hit the bigtime, I think we can safely say it's not going to happen.
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MattJ100 1731 days ago
A mere protocol will never "hit the bigtime" without some compelling (non-protocol) reason. It's unfortunate that businesses choose to build silos time and time again, but that's where we are - it's not an issue that can be solved at the protocol level.

Should this be fixed (e.g. through regulation), XMPP is absolutely a sound choice - given, as you say, its 20 years of experience, evolution and deployment track record.

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kitkat_new 1731 days ago
honestly, given the current adoption, growth and state of the ecosystem, I don't think it is.

In theory, you could achieve with it what Matrix achieves, but it would probably be more feasible to start from scratch - like Matrix did

That said, I see how it currently has advantages when it comes to resource consumption as well as internal deployment to centralized services.

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upofadown 1731 days ago
So what is the bigtime open messaging standard?
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kitkat_new 1731 days ago
there isn't any.

But if I would have to bet on a standard which could become it right now, then it would be Matrix.

It convinces when it comes to adoption, concept, features and growth.

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kitkat_new 1731 days ago
> argument from authority

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

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