Modern XMPP project discussion - 2024-03-10

> communication with whatsapp has already been possible for a while now How exactly? > WhatsApp is one of the most hostile services when it comes to interoperability though. Have you ever wondered why there literally exists no alternative third-party client for WhatsApp? My hope is that this law might improve the situation.

Yes only possible with a transport like slidge.im/ so yes, _maybe_ something easier and more stable might be possible, but it doesn't sounds like that.

zak, yeah pretty much matrix and xmpp have had bridges to other networks one of them being whatsapp since the beginning

AFAIK these were no stable solutions.

So nothing suitable for an end user.

I think it would be a lost chance if nobody tries to do this now in a better way with that offer from Meta.

some of them were. for example pidgin or the element bridges that were hosted by them

> I think it would be a lost chance if nobody tries to do this now in a better way with that offer from Meta. probably they will. hopefully this makes it easier

*were*? Why not anymore?

Seems like this new whatsapp thing might allow a direct connection to whatsapp from a client. So clients could connect to it not so different from other xmpp servers. Not like a server side transport

> *were*? Why not anymore? for element you mean? the decided to focus on goverments and big companies

all personal plans were cancelled

multiprotocol apps like pidgin have existed for a long time

stuff like beeper is a more polished one nowadays https://www.beeper.com/

But you cannot connect to WhatsApp using Pidgin anymore, do you?

probably not. its outdated. a new version is in the works to be released at some point but no timeline yet

thats why i mentioned beeper os other apps like it

I can use Beeper Beta only with an invitation code. It does not look stable and ready-to-use for the common user to me.

i havent used it. but they did have troubles recently with imessage bridge. which is hopefully where the law will help.

in the sense that it will be illegal to randomly break the bridge and not have docs for said bridge

but we will see. i tend to be pessimistic about these things :)

and slidge.im for xmpp as it was mentioned

Well, as I said, I think this new interoperability feature that is enforced now for WhatsApp might be a good chance, but so far it seems nobody is interested to use that for XMPP directly and/or thinks negatively about it. Probably there will be other apps that will do that as you said.

probably. tbh i think xmpp has been burned a lot of times by bridges and generally the sentiment here is that bridges are more trouble than they are worth

so that may explain why people are not enthusiastic or dont care about this that much

another example is that xmpp hasnt really been involved in MIMI either.

MIMI as in an effort to make a messaging standard (another one) for all these bridges

and its not only xmpp. this can be seen in a larger social context around bridges for example with fediverse/activitypub community having being debates whether facebook should be federated with.

i think in general the question of bridging with everyone is not as clear cut as it was 20 years ago when xmpp started

I think the case is now different, because a) WhatsApp is enforced to implement this and b) WhatsApp has enough resources to implement this.

Yes, but still, all you would have is another whatsapp client. The main benifit would be to have one app less

The benefits would be a) one does not have to use WhatsApp directly and b) if more people will use this alternative app that would support common XMPP as well, more people could contact these people directly without the need for WhatsApp.

Honestly I think b) is the reason why wapp prefers c2s instead of s2s way...

not to sound too pesimist but historically and currently bridges dont help people migrate to better stuff. simply because if they can contact you through whatsapp or matrix or irc and it works, why would they do the effort to migrate to another platform?

people dont often change to unfamiliar things. and if they do its on their own terms after a long time of learning.

There are a lot of people who don't like WhatsApp but use it anyway because. If some of them switch to another client that still fulfills the need to contact WhatsApp-only contacts, _these_ people could then be contacted through other ways supported by these clients. I believe this is a realistic scenario that would at least dilute the monopoly of the WhatsApp ecosystem.

Bridges can let _you_ use something else as primary messenger while gradually getting others to migrate ... in theory. But it works both ways as you say, not as strong a pressure.

also you shouldn't contact a person any way they don't expect. even if their app supports whatever protocol you want, you should still ask. to set expectations.

otherwise stuff breaks in subtle ways and you lose recomendation priviledges

Of course the UI of the app should not be a total failure. When user Bob installs the new app "NotWhatsApp" because he hates WhatsApp but still will be able to contact his WhatsApp friends, he should not be confused when Alice uses TheXmppApp to contact Bob directly.

All I am saying is: There is a wood with a significant amount of apple trees in it. People want apples, so lets go build a road to reach them. Do we just say 'but there are trees without apples in the wood' or 'people will not find the apple trees'?