Dear all,
regarding the Google Summer of Code I would like to send a kind reminder.
You can start reading here:
https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Google_Summer_of_Code_2026
If you and your project are interested, please list good ideas.
As I know that the interest in the program has very much declined over
the recent years, I still would like to promote this a opportunity.
Besides the 350 and 175 hours, Google offers to also have just a 90
hours length. This might lower barriers and let reconsider to introduce
people working with XMPP rather than expecting them to implement heavy
lifting such as MUC or A/V. The 90 hours could also be taken to do this
as a more academic implementation and working with rather simple topics
but increase interest in the technology.
Another thing to reconsider is finding people through talks with your
community but also in your local sphere such as university and contacts
you have and that might be suitable.
-
https://mov.im/community/news.xmpp.org/News/e65a1483-2449-4eb7-b1fd-09f3641…
- https://fosstodon.org/@xmpp/115805273794678126
- https://bsky.app/profile/xmpp-official.bsky.social/post/3mb5vxmszad2b
Best regards,
Eddie
On 05/12/2025 19:47, E.M. wrote:
> Dear XMPP Community,
>
> Google has announced their stipend program for 2026.
>
> https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/12/shape-future-with-google-
> summer-of-code.html
>
> In this regard, the XSF is considering to apply as umbrella organisation
> again. To do so, we would expect the community and its projects to come
> up with good and interesting ideas.
>
> Hence, if you are interested to participate and until we come with more
> details, please start thinking about your potential participation and
> also communicating in your community to find also potential candidates
> that contribute.
>
> A good start is to read Google's resources: https://
> developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/resources/
>
> You can also join our GSoC XMPP chat: https://xmpp.org/chat?gsoc
>
> Kind regards,
> Eddie
> GSoC Org Administrator
Dear all,
XSF Communication Team basically just intended to ask for permission
from Board. But they ask us to reach out to all of you. So here we go!
Currently there is a new initiative going on from Save Social – Networks
For Democracy. It's called the Digital Independence Day - Di.Day in
Germany. https://di.day/en (Sorry, no English version yet)
While XMPP members already contacted them to list XMPP as recommended
technology as well (we were not involved). Though, we think it is a good
thing, we wanted to ask if anything speaks against supporting this
campaign and aloow higher presence of XMPP as technology?
We are basically asking whether we can write messages in the media
channels like this:
________________
In Germany the word spreads for the "Digital Independence Day"
(https://di.day), and we also find vendor-independent messaging great!
Coincidentally, the first ‘DI.DAY’ was on the anniversary of XMPP,
January 4th!
So let's go for digital independence and sovereignty!
________________
We believe this could get us certain media attention in a significant
big media campaign in Germany.
Best regards,
Eddie
Dear all,
the XSF Communication Team is pleased to announce a new initiative to
help evolving the XMPP ecosystem in a broader and aligned perspective.
This should cover discussions, development but also extended public
communication and presence. As this is being setup in an iterative way
its participants will be able to form and steer the collaborations
direction over time.
You can read the full blog post here:
https://xmpp.org/2026/01/chat-of-the-future-initiative/
After a number of questions let me elaborate a bit more.
So, when you join the session(s) we will have a interactive
collaboration board present where we will conduct different exercises.
We start with basically exposure and a discussion of the networks status
quo is as everyone sees it from their corner. If you have ideas of what
you would like to change, you can just propose those.
Ideas could be for example that members from the XMPP community are
interest in an organised (regular?) interoperability meeting on certain
XEPs. Others think of more engagement along encryption or building a
better landing page for developers. In the end, all those great ideas
and constructive feedback can be brought to the first session, but also
at a later point. Out of this, the round will form a collaborative
direction that anyone interested can join, commit and contribute to.
There are more and other directing and hopefully fun exercises of this
nature and we will collect, review and discuss ideas that could be worth
moving on within a couple of months. Ideas, to be shaped in smaller
activities, with no long time frames but effective outcomes that the
ecosystem benefits at user or (new) developers level.
We hope this is a motivating opportunity for the XMPP network and help
us to step ahead all together. We also believe that such a collaboration
can enable the network to evolve and gain new momentum and result in
strong benefits for all actors.
Feel free to comeback with your thoughts already.
Best regards from the Communication Team,
Eddie
Hi folks,
The XSF needs to decide on the future of its fiscal hosting programme.
For those unfamiliar, fiscal hosting is a service the XSF has been
offering for a few years now. It allows qualifying XMPP-related
projects to essentially use the XSF as a way to receive money (e.g.
donations from sponsors) and pay expenses (e.g. server costs). This
saves projects from the trouble of setting up their own organization,
bank account, and so on.
To help organize this, we use the Open Collective platform which was
purpose-built for this kind of arrangement. However, Open Collective
have let us know that they will be raising their prices in 2026:
https://pricing-2026.opencollective.com/
Under their previous pricing, our usage did not incur any costs and we
were able to use their platform for free.
They are planning to charge us ~$15/month per project ("collective")
that we host. This is very expensive relative to the amount of funding
we are enabling. For example:
We currently have 5 collectives, and I checked their "estimated annual
budget" earlier this year when the new pricing was announced (income
was calculated by OpenCollective based on the prior 12 months of
activity):
Mellium: $15/month == 180% of their annual budget
Prav: $15/month == 50% of their annual budget
diasp.in: $15/month == 1000% of their annual budget
Bifrost: dormant, $0 raised during past 12 months
Prav iOS app: $15/month == 178% of their annual budget
If we end the fiscal hosting programme, we will need to transfer to
existing projects any funds that we are currently holding for them.
If we continue, we need to agree that the expenses are justified.
I propose this topic as an agenda item for the next board meeting
(15th December). In the meantime, if any members have opinions, please
feel free to share them.
Regards,
Matthew
