[Members] Re: Chat of the Future Initiative

Dear members of the XMPP Community, this week the XSF Communication Team, with me as driver and the one taking full responsibility here, announced the "Chat of the Future Initiative". It's true that this might have come to most of you without much of a further notice. So, after numerous confusions and negative reactions, I would like to mend things up by trying to elaborate, apologize, while, at the same time, see if we can turn this into a more suitable proposal for everyone. There are one or two proposals. First of all, I would like to apologize if this came out of nowhere to many of you. Just because one has best intentions, it doesn't mean it's executed in the best possible way. I certainly take away that you would have rather be informed earlier and filled up with more details as to have a better understanding of the concept. To make things better and help reassure everyone I will now try to elaborate on the points most heavily criticized. ### Point of critique 1: Members have not been involved * In the past we were, often times, under the impression that we received few feedback on the work we did as well as reactions in the mailing list or chat. When preparing this, I don't intended to put efforts on anyone when it comes up to extensive work on pure organization. Now, with a better grasp and understanding about the sensitivity and expectations within the organization and community I will try to improve. * In addition here my question if you would have expected this to be organized by e.g. SCAM team or so? To us, as the Communication Team, then it's also a question about how far are we allowed to go with the ambitions we see. ### Point of critique 2: Unclear purpose * Intentions: I believed for a long time that we, as an ecosystem, can and need to do more beyond single projects and developing a technology, that is, to my impression, at risk of becoming more and more niche. We can build the best RTC protocol and technology in the world, but if there is few application to a significant scale - well... * Adding a new holistic space for collaboration with the community: This posses no harm nor threat to other spaces we actually have, and furthermore, I believe this will provide them with more value. It is also conceived to happen more frequently and the invites are simply a first shot in the calendar. * This is an offer for a talk: Online, with options to include more people to join, and bring with them their different backgrounds and views and ideas. People, that may struggle to participate in other contexts. Those talks are planned to be guided by your interaction in a collaborative space. It's for example planned to ask you about your perspective on the status quo of the XMPP ecosystem. What are we getting right, what are we not? Where is it that we see room for improvement? Can we formulate any activities out of this? Where is it that we concur a common ground to act? Over the sessions we will get a more clear picture here and steer it together. * Potential areas to act that have been told me as an example: * Interoperability sessions * Encryption (of the Future?) * Onboarding of Developers * XMPP Myths (you folks mentioned that two years ago) * XMPP on iOS (or other platforms) * ? * (Here is already the chance for you to mention more) * Opportunity to form and organize beyond our common horizon: Far thinking from here, this can help us formulate more strategic thinking and act accordingly thorough on the entire XMPP ecosystem. Building momentum around this can also allow us to gain more interest in the technology as well as provide us more resources etc. That is also why its called "Chat of the Future Initiative". * Communication: This is not barely discussions and activities on the ecosystem in general, it should also come with benefits to your projects. In that regard its planned with presence in the media channels we have (and are expanding to) and offer >explicitly< participating actors and projects. This is an opportunity for you to take advantage out of it. ### Point of critique 3: Choice of tooling * Without going into discussion regarding Mural again, I will try to migrate to Draw.io (yes!), but due to performance issues, we'll use it in an asynchronous way. Though, if you want to add your perspective, that requires you to take the time in advance now. Thinking of it, it might also be helpful actually. The session(s), will be the place to discuss and focus about it. I hope this helps to close the gap and gain your interest and curiosity. Last point as critique back: I made mistakes here. Yes, and I'm sorry. But some of the feedback received was certainly out of line on how we want to communicate, at least from where I am standing. This is not the first time that this happens and if we do not react to this as community we will stay where we are. With best intentions, Eddie On 05/01/2026 22:58, E.M. wrote: