Discussion: More structured outreach and positioning of XMPP - Members

Dan Caseley

5 Feb 5 Feb

9:45 p.m.

When I reflect on this year vs last year at the stand, there was far less "oh, you're still alive?" and far more "we already use Matrix" or "I can't convert my friends & family". I think the second one is a technical problem that's somewhat solved in a subset of clients & servers, and we could do more on that. But I think that's probably digital outreach rather than eventing. I think the first one is a social problem, and I think there are a bunch of talks you can do around that. - How to quickly set up a server that ties into an auth provider for quick "free" chat with minimal server requirements - XMPP without Federation: Why Chat for Enterprise might want to segregate, and why that doesn't mean no S2S - XMPP in the Cloud, and On-Prem - It's not all talk: pubsub, forms, and other first class citizens of XMPP I think there are topics above that hold some interest and some punch to keep XMPP alive in people's minds, whilst also increasing the chances of creating hooks for business and government (the latter of which I know was of interest at Summit). This is all riffing though - I'm sure others will have more and better ideas. I'd hope, for keeping it low fuss and low cost, we'd only need slideware for these. Of course, live demos are always cool, but some client/server demos can have some risk on the event network conditions etc. I'd also love to see us attracting communities to organising around XMPP, in the same way they might do that around a Discord or Slack channel now. I believe that's a key driver for getting folks to bring it into the workplace, and to attracting developers and activists. But I don't have any ideas on how to get there... Dan On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 at 18:30, Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi everyone, At the Summit, we had a good discussion about outreach and positioning of XMPP, and whether we could be more deliberate in how we present XMPP as a technology in relevant communities and markets. One concrete idea that came up was: Having XSF representatives speak at selected events (conferences, meetups, etc.) More generally, this raises questions such as: - Where do we want XMPP to be more visible? - What audiences should we prioritize? - What kinds of materials, messaging, or support would be needed? - How can we do this in a sustainable, volunteer-friendly way? This thread is intended to collect ideas, experiences, and opinions on whether - and how - we might move toward more structured outreach. No decisions are implied at this point; the goal is simply to start a focused conversation. Kind regards, Guus

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Winfried Tilanus

12:57 a.m.

In my experience 101 type of talks on topics like: - setting up your xmpp server (private or not) for sysadmins - getting started with xmpp development for developers - programming real time communication in language X or Y at language specific meetups - setting up a private and secure messaging setup for a more security focussed audience I haven't tried hands-on workshops yet ('after this workshop, you have your own federated xmpp server running'), curious how they will fall in the different audiences. In general I think it is a thing of connecting networks we are already participating in. Winfried On 5 February 2026 21:45:28 CET, Dan Caseley <dan(a)caseley.me.uk> wrote:

...

When I reflect on this year vs last year at the stand, there was far less "oh, you're still alive?" and far more "we already use Matrix" or "I can't convert my friends & family". I think the second one is a technical problem that's somewhat solved in a subset of clients & servers, and we could do more on that. But I think that's probably digital outreach rather than eventing. I think the first one is a social problem, and I think there are a bunch of talks you can do around that. - How to quickly set up a server that ties into an auth provider for quick "free" chat with minimal server requirements - XMPP without Federation: Why Chat for Enterprise might want to segregate, and why that doesn't mean no S2S - XMPP in the Cloud, and On-Prem - It's not all talk: pubsub, forms, and other first class citizens of XMPP I think there are topics above that hold some interest and some punch to keep XMPP alive in people's minds, whilst also increasing the chances of creating hooks for business and government (the latter of which I know was of interest at Summit). This is all riffing though - I'm sure others will have more and better ideas. I'd hope, for keeping it low fuss and low cost, we'd only need slideware for these. Of course, live demos are always cool, but some client/server demos can have some risk on the event network conditions etc. I'd also love to see us attracting communities to organising around XMPP, in the same way they might do that around a Discord or Slack channel now. I believe that's a key driver for getting folks to bring it into the workplace, and to attracting developers and activists. But I don't have any ideas on how to get there... Dan On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 at 18:30, Guus der Kinderen <guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > At the Summit, we had a good discussion about outreach and positioning of > XMPP, and whether we could be more deliberate in how we present XMPP as a > technology in relevant communities and markets. > > One concrete idea that came up was: Having XSF representatives speak at > selected events (conferences, meetups, etc.) > > More generally, this raises questions such as: > > - Where do we want XMPP to be more visible? > - What audiences should we prioritize? > - What kinds of materials, messaging, or support would be needed? > - How can we do this in a sustainable, volunteer-friendly way? > > This thread is intended to collect ideas, experiences, and opinions on > whether - and how - we might move toward more structured outreach. > > No decisions are implied at this point; the goal is simply to start a > focused conversation. > > Kind regards, > > Guus >

-- Normally there is some text here, bragging about the new phone and excusing for the brevity. That is insane: if this phone was really that great, I would have sent a decent mail.

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E.M.

18 Feb 18 Feb

10:08 p.m.

Hey everyone, thanks for continuing the discussion here that I support. I would like to raise again what Daniel Brötzmann has suggesting for a while: Having a "Getting started" for developers. I think that could be something to promote even more. If people have suggestions I am happy to help coordinating here. We can make this a separate thread of course. Yes, I can help with coordination if that is what you are asking for. Though, looking at available resources, let's decide for one topic that seems to be a decent topic and start here and not overwhelm ourselves. I think each of the three areas is sufficient effort for itself already. Side note: I am also currently working on converting community feedback from the Chat of the Future Initiative it promotion statements that we could turn into promotion material that is also good to share on media channels. Cheers, Eddie On 17/02/2026 19:44, Guus der Kinderen wrote:

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Hi all, Thanks for the suggestions so far. Building on these, I'd like to propose a few directions we could explore: *1. Outreach at conferences and meetups*During the Summit, we discussed the idea of having someone represent XMPP at selected events. Rather than relying on a single representative, we could form a small team of experienced speakers. To support them: - Offer training or coaching on public speaking and outreach for non-XMPP-native audiences. - Maintain a prioritized list of conferences and meetups for XMPP presence. - Create a shared repository of slides, topics, and workshop materials (including suggestions from Dan and Winfried) to avoid starting from scratch each time. *2. Improving presence in third-party media*Our external footprint is often weak or outdated. Wikipedia is a clear example. I've started work on the XSF talk page (following COI guidelines), but more help would be welcome. Other opportunities include: - Additional XMPP-related Wikipedia pages and translations. - "Awesome Lists" (https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome) for decentralized systems. - ... other protocol, developer, or infrastructure directories where technologies are compared. Looking ahead ambitiously: We could explore getting XMPP visible in widely read publications (such as TechCrunch, The Verge, Wired, InfoQ). Pragmatic first steps could include: - Identifying content we already have from XSF or projects suitable for external audiences. - Investigating workflows for submissions or pitches. I'm interested to hear whether these directions make sense and who might be willing to help move them forward. Could the CommTeam help coordinate improvements or identify owners for specific tasks? Kind regards, Guus On Fri, Feb 6, 2026 at 12:57 AM Winfried Tilanus <winfried(a)tilanus.com> wrote:

In my experience 101 type of talks on topics like: - setting up your xmpp server (private or not) for sysadmins - getting started with xmpp development for developers - programming real time communication in language X or Y at language specific meetups - setting up a private and secure messaging setup for a more security focussed audience I haven't tried hands-on workshops yet ('after this workshop, you have your own federated xmpp server running'), curious how they will fall in the different audiences. In general I think it is a thing of connecting networks we are already participating in. Winfried On 5 February 2026 21:45:28 CET, Dan Caseley <dan(a)caseley.me.uk> wrote:

When I reflect on this year vs last year at the stand, there was far less "oh, you're still alive?" and far more "we already use Matrix" or "I can't convert my friends & family". I think the second one is a technical problem that's somewhat solved in a subset of clients & servers, and we could do more on that. But I think that's probably digital outreach rather than eventing. I think the first one is a social problem, and I think there are a bunch of talks you can do around that. - How to quickly set up a server that ties into an auth provider for quick "free" chat with minimal server requirements - XMPP without Federation: Why Chat for Enterprise might want to segregate, and why that doesn't mean no S2S - XMPP in the Cloud, and On-Prem - It's not all talk: pubsub, forms, and other first class citizens of XMPP I think there are topics above that hold some interest and some punch to keep XMPP alive in people's minds, whilst also increasing the chances of creating hooks for business and government (the latter of which I know was of interest at Summit). This is all riffing though - I'm sure others will have more and better ideas. I'd hope, for keeping it low fuss and low cost, we'd only need slideware for these. Of course, live demos are always cool, but some client/server demos can have some risk on the event network conditions etc. I'd also love to see us attracting communities to organising around XMPP, in the same way they might do that around a Discord or Slack channel now. I believe that's a key driver for getting folks to bring it into the workplace, and to attracting developers and activists. But I don't have any ideas on how to get there... Dan On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 at 18:30, Guus der Kinderen < guus.der.kinderen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone, At the Summit, we had a good discussion about outreach and positioning of XMPP, and whether we could be more deliberate in how we present XMPP as a technology in relevant communities and markets. One concrete idea that came up was: Having XSF representatives speak at selected events (conferences, meetups, etc.) More generally, this raises questions such as: - Where do we want XMPP to be more visible? - What audiences should we prioritize? - What kinds of materials, messaging, or support would be needed? - How can we do this in a sustainable, volunteer-friendly way? This thread is intended to collect ideas, experiences, and opinions on whether - and how - we might move toward more structured outreach. No decisions are implied at this point; the goal is simply to start a focused conversation. Kind regards, Guus

--

Normally there is some text here, bragging about the new phone and excusing for the brevity. That is insane: if this phone was really that great, I would have sent a decent mail.

Reply