25 Feb
2026
25 Feb
'26
1:04 a.m.
Hello,
As an open standards organization I think the XSF should sign
https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/
There are many reasons but the most obvious is that Android is the most popular operating
system in the world (wikipedia says). If you want XMPP adoption by users self hosting, or
companies, or govts, they'll all need clients to run on android, and google has a long
track record of blocking them. eg
https://blog.jmp.chat/b/2026-google-wants-to-control-your-device it's also happened to
Conversations and I believe Snikket.
Guus asked that I email here to guage support so please reply to let the board know. If
you are like me and despise email drop your support in xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join and
I'll forward it here for you.
Thanks,
moparisthebest
25 Feb
25 Feb
3:26 a.m.
Hello everyone:
Replying in support to Travis proposal, the XSF should sign the open letter.
The arguments have been clearly exposed by Travis and I don't plan to be redundant nor
add verbosity to something that I personally found to be self explanatory and can be
simply reduced into a matter of common sense.
It is my humble opinion that Board shouldn't delay this any further and sign the open
letter on behalf of the XSF.
Best regards
Gonzalo Raúl Nemmi.
El 24 de febrero de 2026 9:04:26 p. m. GMT-03:00, Travis Burtrum
<travis(a)burtrum.org> escribió:
Hello,
As an open standards organization I think the XSF should sign
https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/
There are many reasons but the most obvious is that Android is the most popular operating
system in the world (wikipedia says). If you want XMPP adoption by users self hosting, or
companies, or govts, they'll all need clients to run on android, and google has a long
track record of blocking them. eg
https://blog.jmp.chat/b/2026-google-wants-to-control-your-device it's also happened to
Conversations and I believe Snikket.
Guus asked that I email here to guage support so please reply to let the board know. If
you are like me and despise email drop your support in xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join and
I'll forward it here for you.
Thanks,
moparisthebest
5:15 a.m.
Hello all,
I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we should
sign this.
I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
reason to add anything further as the argument is quite self-evident.
Best,
Badri
9:08 a.m.
Yes of course, agreeed.
On 2/25/26 6:15 AM, Badri Sunderarajan via Members wrote:
Hello all,
I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we should
sign this.
I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
reason to add anything further as the argument is quite self-evident.
Best,
Badri
9:17 a.m.
I don't believe that open source or software freedoms are a core part of
the XSF's mission.
That being said, I think this is a good cause, I think there's a positive
for the XSF being aligned with all of those other signatories, and I can't
see any obvious downsides.
+1
Dan
On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, 08:09 eevvoor via Members, <members(a)xmpp.org> wrote:
Yes of course, agreeed.
On 2/25/26 6:15 AM, Badri Sunderarajan via Members wrote:
Hello all,
I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we should
sign this.
I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
reason to add anything further as the argument is quite self-evident.
Best,
Badri
8:35 p.m.
Le 25 février 2026 09:17:08 GMT+01:00, Dan Caseley <dan(a)caseley.me.uk> a écrit :
I don't believe that open source or software
freedoms are a core part of
the XSF's mission.
That being said, I think this is a good cause, I think there's a positive
for the XSF being aligned with all of those other signatories, and I can't
see any obvious downsides.
+1
Dan
On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, 08:09 eevvoor via Members, <members(a)xmpp.org> wrote:
> Yes of course, agreeed.
>
> On 2/25/26 6:15 AM, Badri Sunderarajan via Members wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we should
> > sign this.
> >
> > I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
> > reason to add anything further as the argument is quite self-evident.
> >
> > Best,
> > Badri
> >
>
>
I don't think the XSF has to be aligned on free software or open-source values, as
evidenced by the number of members, sponsors, companies and community members that
actually work on proprietary software.
What the XSF does, however, is build an open standard in the commons in a way that gives
as much freedom of choice as such a standard can give, and give visibility to the numerous
options available, including the public federated XMPP network.
In that perspective, google closing down the android ecosystem is directly detrimental to
the availability of XMPP clients on android, by parties not vetted by them, or using other
distribution mechanisms (not to mention the catastrophic upload/update review process as
evidenced by the difficulties for XMPP android apps to state that they do not actually
collect email addresses), proprietary or not. This seems in line with the XSF mission, and
is not costing us anything that I can think of.
+1 from me
Mathieu
10:26 p.m.
+1 from me, too
Am Mittwoch, 25. Februar 2026, 20:35:02 CET schrieb Mathieu Pasquet:
Le 25 février 2026 09:17:08 GMT+01:00, Dan Caseley
<dan(a)caseley.me.uk> a
écrit :
I don't
believe that open source or software freedoms are a core part of
the XSF's mission.
That being said, I think this is a good cause, I think there's a positive
for the XSF being aligned with all of those other signatories, and I can't
see any obvious downsides.
+1
Dan
On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, 08:09 eevvoor via Members, <members(a)xmpp.org> wrote:
> Yes of course, agreeed.
>
> On 2/25/26 6:15 AM, Badri Sunderarajan via Members wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we should
> > sign this.
> >
> > I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
> > reason to add anything further as the argument is quite self-evident.
> >
> > Best,
> > Badri
I don't think the XSF has to be aligned on free software or open-source
values, as evidenced by the number of members, sponsors, companies and
community members that actually work on proprietary software.
What the XSF does, however, is build an open standard in the commons in a
way that gives as much freedom of choice as such a standard can give, and
give visibility to the numerous options available, including the public
federated XMPP network.
In that perspective, google closing down the android ecosystem is directly
detrimental to the availability of XMPP clients on android, by parties not
vetted by them, or using other distribution mechanisms (not to mention the
catastrophic upload/update review process as evidenced by the difficulties
for XMPP android apps to state that they do not actually collect email
addresses), proprietary or not. This seems in line with the XSF mission,
and is not costing us anything that I can think of.
+1 from me
Mathieu 
27 Feb
27 Feb
8:05 p.m.
Hi all,
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. I am personally a bit nuanced on
this. Platform policy advocacy is not something I would normally see as
core to the mission of the XMPP Standards Foundation. At the same time, it
is hard to ignore that Android openness has a real impact on client
diversity, interoperability, and how viable XMPP deployments are in
practice.
Based on the discussion on this list, my sense is that there is a fairly
clear member-expressed mandate in favor of signing the letter. Given that,
even if it is not something I would strongly push for myself, I would be
fine with the XSF signing it in order to reflect that mandate.
Kind regards,
Guus
On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 10:27 PM Thilo Molitor <thilo(a)eightysoft.de> wrote:
+1 from me, too
Am Mittwoch, 25. Februar 2026, 20:35:02 CET schrieb Mathieu Pasquet:
directly
Le 25 février 2026 09:17:08 GMT+01:00, Dan
Caseley <dan(a)caseley.me.uk>
a
écrit :
>I don't believe that open source or
software freedoms are a core part of
>the XSF's mission.
>
>That being said, I think this is a good cause, I think there's a
positive
>for the XSF being aligned with all of those
other signatories, and I
can't
>see any obvious downsides.
>
>+1
>
>Dan
>
>On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, 08:09 eevvoor via Members, <members(a)xmpp.org>
wrote:
>> Yes of course, agreeed.
>>
>> On 2/25/26 6:15 AM, Badri Sunderarajan via Members wrote:
>> > Hello all,
>> >
>> > I agree with Travis and Gonzalo—it's quite clear to me that we
should
>> > sign this.
>> >
>> > I could go on a rant about Google but like Gonzalo I don't see any
>> > reason to add anything further as the argument is quite
self-evident.
> >
> > Best,
> > Badri
I don't think the XSF has to be aligned on free software or open-source
values, as evidenced by the number of members, sponsors, companies and
community members that actually work on proprietary software.
What the XSF does, however, is build an open standard in the commons in a
way that gives as much freedom of choice as such a standard can give, and
give visibility to the numerous options available, including the public
federated XMPP network.
In that perspective, google closing down the android ecosystem is detrimental to the availability of XMPP clients
on android, by parties
not
vetted by them, or using other distribution
mechanisms (not to mention
the
catastrophic upload/update review process as
evidenced by the
difficulties
> for XMPP android apps to state that they do not actually collect email
> addresses), proprietary or not. This seems in line with the XSF mission,
> and is not costing us anything that I can think of.
>
> +1 from me
>
> Mathieu 
25 Feb
25 Feb
10:36 a.m.
Most things like this are not the core mission of the XSF, but in this case
I think this aligns with one of the aims of interoperable standards - that
is, client choice.
Google requiring all app development to go through them exclusively feels
to me as if it's a barrier to client choice, a barrier to people choosing
to interact with their services in the manner of their choosing.
I don't see this as being an "open source thing", therefore, but an
"open
standards thing", and the XSF definitely Has Views on that.
So I'm behind this one, both personally and with an XSF Member hat on.
Dave.
On Wed, 25 Feb 2026 at 00:04, Travis Burtrum <travis(a)burtrum.org> wrote:
Hello,
As an open standards organization I think the XSF should sign
https://keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/
There are many reasons but the most obvious is that Android is the most
popular operating system in the world (wikipedia says). If you want XMPP
adoption by users self hosting, or companies, or govts, they'll all need
clients to run on android, and google has a long track record of blocking
them. eg https://blog.jmp.chat/b/2026-google-wants-to-control-your-device it's
also happened to Conversations and I believe Snikket.
Guus asked that I email here to guage support so please reply to let the
board know. If you are like me and despise email drop your support in
xmpp:xsf@muc.xmpp.org?join and I'll forward it here for you.
Thanks,
moparisthebest
7:31 p.m.
Hey there, I fully agree here that the situation Google creates could create a barrier to
client choice,
and seeing how they usually treat XMPP clients that could be a huge threat. This is not
only an open standards
issue then, but also a matter to defend our community against an actor (Google) that
sometimes makes XMPP presence
very difficult on the Android ecosystem, which this actor tries to control more and more
firmly.
I think the XSF should sign this letter.
Freely yours!
--
Adrien Bourmault (neox)
Libre en Communs, responsable Cominfra
XMPP Standards Foundation, elected member
GPG : E23C26A5DEEEC5FA9CDDD57A57BC26A3687116F6
3
days inactive
5
days old
9 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Adrien 'neox' Bourmault -
Badri Sunderarajan -
Dan Caseley -
Dave Cridland -
eevvoor -
Gonzalo Raúl Nemmi -
Guus der Kinderen -
Mathieu Pasquet -
Thilo Molitor -
Travis Burtrum