I took the following AI in the OC meeting: "start a thread or book a meeting to discuss next steps in the messaging space per-WG and cross-WG".
@edumerco @edsu @sam @Matt_Noyes I think you are interested in this topic :) would you like to start by discussing here? I can also start a time slot picking process to meet and discuss synchronously.
Also, anyone else that you think would be interested?
@flancian @edsu @sam @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism
On another different line of thought/software, I had really great experiences with Zulip (https://zulip.com/).
What makes it great from my POV is the serious thread model. It helps to know what is happening, keep context, focus on what matters for you (including notificacions), mark as done, etc.
It is not federated, but it is Free Software and we can self-host it.
Anyone else tried it? Do we want to make a test?
@edumerco @flancian @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism I was thinking before that May First has chat and we have May First access but that it probably wouldn't be ideal for us because it is *just* an account and they don't provide a web client or anything (as far as I know?), but it occurred to me later that we could also just use the May First infrastructure and host our own web client (or just a page recommending actual apps for different operating systems).
@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism thank you all for your interest and participation!
Ideally I think we could pursue the following using the fact that one of our VPSes is under-utilized currently:
- Install some or all of: a lightweight Matrix server (e.g. conduit), an XMPP server (something prosody adjacent?), a Zulip instance.
- Share test credentials with people in the working groups and gather feedback/see what catches on and productionize that?
@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism on the topic of what the goal would be, I think the ideal outcome is we offer an extra service to the community *with the initial warning that it might have a worse SLO than the mastodon instance*, meaning they shouldn't rely on it for anything critical yet. Then we see how expensive it is to run and we vote as a community on running it or not?
@edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism from all the options, I still believe Matrix is the most future looking and the platform where most of our members *already have accounts*; but I'm OK being swayed by data and other proposals, and don't get me wrong: I liked Zulip a lot when I used it, and I used to help run XMPP for Google and loved it back then.
@flancian @edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @dazinism I think it would be great to expand our offerings this way and would love to see us host a Matrix server, esp. since we use Matrix anyway, and to support an important project.
Cf:
https://www.loomio.com/d/5yW7iCsJ/new-social-coop-services-
https://www.loomio.com/d/tOBDu5ap/
https://www.loomio.com/d/gP67te9Z/
@mako @ntnsndr @edumerco @sam @edsu @Matt_Noyes @dazinism glad to read that Benjamin! This is still brewing but mostly unblocked now, next steps are making some time in the tech working group to deploy test instances of ideally several of the options (I'd personally start with a Matrix homeserver though).
If you're already on Matrix and Interested in discussing further feel free to join our room, it's documented in wiki.social.coop!
@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @edumerco @Matt_Noyes @dazinism meaning no disrespect, but mind dropping me from this thread? As you all know I am strongly opposed to us running a Matrix homeserver, but we don't seem to be honestly considering other alternatives and I really just don't want to have to keep being sad every time this pops up in my timeline.
Dear @sam
I didn't knew about your distaste with Matrix and I'm very much with you, that's why proposed zulip (or XMPP). But of course, the last thing we want to do is to bother.
Do you want to be included when/where we discuss other possibilities?
Sorry for the sadness... (≧≦)
@sam
No harm done, I open a matrix client to speak with one person really and didn't saw there much conversation about it neither. :)
So, coming back to this talk, which criteria do we use to make a choice?
I'll start with a few to ignite the talk:
. Inclusivity and freedom (amount of possibilities about how to use/access the service)
. Standards (tested, advancements, documentation)
1/2
@edsu @flancian @mako @ntnsndr @Matt_Noyes @dazinism
2/2
. Thread management (what is being talked here now? What is already done and what is alive?
. Federation?
. Security (both data and metadata)
. Low on resources (both for installation and maintenance)
. Possibility to integrate with our -desired- SSO
. What others? :)
Hi @edsu
I get it, and it is true. And there is other subset that would prefer other solution/s.
Or we could support many services, but now we are limited on people with knowledge so that is for some future. :)
So, in orden not to fall on preferences, let's try to agree on criteria to make a selection for a specific use.
Today matrix is already used by some WGs. Do we want to provide a service to all the coop members or just some WGs?
Hi @dynamic
I agreed with almost everything except the selfishly part, which made laugh a lot, so thank you very much... :DDD
Back on topic, I *specially* agree about the infinite scroll. It is positively difficult to talk and focus in such a varying context. That is why I proposed zulip, that manages those things in a spectacular way. :)
@flancian @edumerco @edsu @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism I'd like to push back on "why not" as a reason to do anything. More specifically, I think we'll have different requirements depending on if this is for all users or just for a few working groups to use (I suspect if it's for all social.coop members as a service those requirements will be a superset of the requirements for if it's just us). We should decide what we want to do here and have a good reason for it up front IMO.
@dynamic @sam @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako thanks for the feedback both of you!
- I think it's totally workable if it can run comfortably within the VPS that currently only hosts our wiki and our (under-utilized) single-sign-on service, called Hypha. A test should sort that out.
- I don't think the requirements are going to be too different in the end (continued...)
@dynamic @sam @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako we should set up the services in question using [[coop cloud]], which makes it cheap/quick if the recipes for the services exist. I will check which ones exist and report back.
In any case we would want to set up SSO so people can use the password they use e.g. with the wiki to test.
Which service(s) we try first and which ones we support depends on difficulty and time/interest available within the TWG, assuming no other additional costs for the coop.
@dynamic @sam @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako @edsu @dphiffer @3wordchant
I checked https://git.coopcloud.tech/coop-cloud for recipes for: zulip, an xmpp server and a matrix server. I found so far:
- the mainline main matrix implementation, presumably slow but well maintained
- snikket (xmpp)
Calix, would recipes for conduit and zulip make sense as contributions?
@ntnsndr @edumerco @sam @dazinism @mako @edsu @dphiffer @3wordchant this is a bad move by Matrix honestly. Reliability and scalability should not be locked behind a paywall. It seems unethical to leave the community with a substandard implementation, systems that don't scale well tend to be inefficient in many ways.
@flancian been a while since I researched / ran one but I think the winning option at the time was https://conversejs.org/
@3wordchant @flancian I'm definitely open to trying XMPP (or using it again after a long hiatus). I honestly like the fact that it is lighter, older, and has survived. As an experiment I tried conversejs.org with my @mayfirst Jabber account and got a connection error, but the same settings work fine in Adium. I'm not sure if this is a conversejs issue or a Mayfirst issue...
@edsu I'm not sure why I can't log in to converse with my may first account. @mayfirst about to upgrade our xmpp server and launch our own web client using movim. Also, we will be explicitly adding xmpp to our control panel. Stay tuned! I'm a big fan of xmpp because, unlike matrix, we don't have a complete store of all sent messages on our server.
@jamiem that is an excellent feature, especially in these times. thanks for the details about the plans for xmpp. And also, thanks for the reminder that I need to be tuning into what is going on in the larger community.
@jamiem @edsu @mayfirst fellow MayFirst member and former XSF council/editor here, give me a hollar if you need a hand with any of this! I've been wanting to be more involved for a long time, but never could figure out how, but I'm always happy to answer XMPP related questions (or hook you up with the people you need if they're super implementation specific or something).
@sam Thanks Sam. Once we complete this change we will be on prosody .12 and I was planning to reach out to you to ask you to put us through all your tests again and see if we can ensure we are up to speed. I'd also love to learn why we can't login to conversejs. Not sure if that's worth debugging now or whether we should just wait for the move.
@jamiem RE converse.js I'm not seeing the same error (mine tries to log in and then spins forever), but it doesn't look like https://mayfirst.org/.well-known/host-meta is present. Since the address is "mayfirst.org" but the actual connection spot is "im.mayfirst.org" and web clients can't lookup SRV records, I think you'd need a host-meta with the CORS header set to allow the converse.js domain to access it.
In other group we are also checking XMPP and it's working super fine.
Some details (image download, reactions, etc) are dependent on the server software/version, but to do the usual chat is perfectly fine.
It integrates calls/vc; clients are abundant; tt's federated, based on a standard, time tested. If we have our own server, seems a great choice.
How much effort and computing resources we need to try?
@3wordchant @flancian @dynamic @sam @dazinism @ntnsndr @mako @edsu @dphiffer
@edumerco @mayfirst @edsu @flancian @Matt_Noyes @mako @ntnsndr @dazinism I do think exploring a partnership here would be beneficial (if it's something other mayfirst folks would be interested in, I can bring it up on the internal mayfirst forums if the team needs more details), but I think for our needs it would require them to run a custom configuration just for social.coop, so it would be more complicated than just using mayfirsts existing XMPP server.