The 50th release of the XMPP Newsletter!

This is the 50th release of the XMPP Newsletter since it started in February 2019. We think it is worth to celebrate this achievement and say thanks to all the contributors as well as all our readers! Back at the Summit in Brussels, JC Brand, Nicolas Vérité (Nyco) and Severino Ferrer (S0ul) proposed and initiated the XMPP Newsletter. Since then almost every month there has been a release full of news from the XMPP universe. Hence, we are looking forward to the next releases and invite you to participate in this community effort! We would love to see more contributors as well as more translations of the XMPP Newsletter. Read more about how to help below.

That being said, welcome to the 50th edition of the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again! This issue covers the month of March 2024.

XSF Announcements

Welcome to our reapplicants and new members in Q1 2024! If you are interested to join the XMPP Standards Foundation as member, please apply now.

XMPP and Google Summer of Code 2024

The XSF has been accepted as a hosting organisation at GSoC in 2024 again! Currently XMPP project mentors are reviewing the proposals. GSoC project ideas from XMPP-related projects are:

• Monal
  • Modern Onboarding (90 hours, easy)
  • Media Gallery (90 hours, easy)
  • MDM support (175 hours, easy)
  • SiriKit support (350 hours, medium)
• Dino
  • Inline link preview (175 hours, easy)
  • Rich message support (175 hours, easy)
• Prav.app
  • Standards compliant SMS OTP based authentication (350 hours, medium)

XSF Fiscal Hosting Projects

The XSF offers fiscal hosting for XMPP projects. Please apply via Open Collective. For more information, see the announcement blog post. Current projects you can support:

• Mellium Co-op
• Prav iOS

XMPP Events

• XMPP Italian happy hour [IT]: monthly Italian XMPP web meeting, every third Monday of the month at 7:00 PM local time (online event, with web meeting mode and live streaming).

Talks

• Last November the Linux Inlaws Podcast hosted Edward and Matt from the XSF Board 2024. The episode has been published recently and can be accessed via archive.org.

Articles

Axel Reimer published an XMPP app decision table. It compares typical instant messaging features of popular XMPP apps and might be a guideline for new users who want to try an XMPP app. The table is available in English and German.

You can now ask all your questions about XMPP Providers in the new support chat. That chat is hosted on an own XMPP server which is set up with the new XMPP Providers Server project. It is a simple, Ansible-based all-in-one server setup that can be used for your own XMPP server as well.

Snikket Hosting is now publicly available! The launch is about providing new ways to get started with Snikket, not replacing the options that are already available. If you are already self-hosting Snikket, or planning to, nothing is changing for you. Though please do donate to support the project, even a little helps!

European Union news:

• Designated gatekeepers must now comply with all obligations under the Digital Markets Act
• Interoperable Europe act: Council adopts new law for more efficient digital public services across the EU

Software News

Clients and Applications

• The JMP newsletter introduces the JMP eSIM Adapter, allowing users to use eSIMs from any provider in any device. It explains how to download and write eSIMs to the adapter, including using an open source Android app or PC/SC reader. Cheogram Android also receives an update with new features and a visual refresh. There’s a clarification on contact integration, with Google now requiring the app claim to upload the contacts even though it does not.
• Converse 10.1.7 with StropheJS fix for XEP-0474: SASL SCRAM Downgrade Protection.
• Psi+ 1.5.1716 through 1.5.1669 have been released.

Servers

• Openfire has been released in version 4.8.1.
  • Openfire inVerse plugin version 10.1.7.1 has been released.
  • Openfire PionTurn plugin 1.0.0 has been released! It creates a TURN/STUN server for Openfire.

Libraries & Tools

• A new release of go-xmpp 0.1.4.
• A new release of go-sendxmpp 0.9.0.
• overpush: A self-hosted, drop-in replacement for Pushover, that uses XMPP as delivery method. It offers the same API for submitting messages, so that existing setups (e.g. Grafana) can continue working and only require changing the API URL. Release article.

Extensions and specifications

The XMPP Standards Foundation develops extensions to XMPP in its XEP series in addition to XMPP RFCs.

Developers and other standards experts from around the world collaborate on these extensions, developing new specifications for emerging practices, and refining existing ways of doing things. Proposed by anybody, the particularly successful ones end up as Final or Active - depending on their type - while others are carefully archived as Deferred. This life cycle is described in XEP-0001, which contains the formal and canonical definitions for the types, states, and processes. Read more about the standards process. Communication around Standards and Extensions happens in the Standards Mailing List (online archive).

Proposed

The XEP development process starts by writing up an idea and submitting it to the XMPP Editor. Within two weeks, the Council decides whether to accept this proposal as an Experimental XEP.

• Message Displayed Synchronization
  • This specification allows multiple clients of the same user to synchronize the displayed state of their chats.

New

• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0485 (PubSub Server Information)
  • Promoted to Experimental. (dg)
• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0486 (MUC Avatars)
  • Promoted to Experimental (XEP Editor: dg)
• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0487 (Host Meta 2 - One Method To Rule Them All)
  • Promoted to Experimental (XEP Editor: dg)
• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0488 (MUC Token Invite)
  • Promoted to Experimental (XEP Editor: dg)
• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0489 (Reporting Account Affiliations)
  • Promoted to Experimental (XEP Editor: dg)
• Version 0.1.0 of XEP-0490 (Message Displayed Synchronization)
  • Promoted to Experimental (XEP Editor: dg)

Deferred

If an experimental XEP is not updated for more than twelve months, it will be moved off Experimental to Deferred. If there is another update, it will put the XEP back onto Experimental.

• No XEPs deferred this month.

Updated

• Version 1.25.0 of XEP-0001 (XMPP Extension Protocols)
  • Add note that editorial changes do not affect Deferred state (XEP Editor: dg)
• Version 1.26.0 of XEP-0060 (Publish-Subscribe)
  • Add examples for publishing item without ID (melvo)
• Version 1.1.1 of XEP-0313 (Message Archive Management)
  • Add XEP-0136 to superseded specifications (gdk)
• Version 0.5.0 and 0.6.0 of XEP-0333 (Displayed Markers (was: Chat Markers))
  • Remove <received/> to not replicate functionality.
  • Remove <acknowledged/> because it was not implemented in the last 10 years and apparently is not needed.
  • Remove Disco feature. Opting in via <markable/> is enough (dg)
  • Add Business Rule about opportunistic Displayed Markers in 1:1 chats (dg)
• Version 0.5.0 of XEP-0334 (Message Processing Hints)
  • Incorporate last call feedback from 2017.
  • Differences between this specification and XEP-0079 have been clarified.
  • A note about handling of hints found in error stanzas has been added. (mw)
• Version 0.4.1 of XEP-0388 (Extensible SASL Profile)
  • Add missing elements to XML Schema
  • Add missing XMPP Registrar Considerations (dg)
• Version 0.3.0 of XEP-0398 (User Avatar to vCard-Based Avatars Conversion)
  • Add text to explain that both and are valid implementations.
  • Add Security Considerations for both variants (dg)
• Version 0.4.1 of XEP-0424 (Message Retraction)
  • Fix schema.
  • Add missing for attribute in fallback element (Example 4). (nc)
• Version of XEP-0425 (Moderated Message Retraction)
  • Remove the dependency on XEP-0422 Message Fastening
  • Rename to ‘Moderated Message Retraction’ and focus only on the retraction use-case
  • Ensure compatibility with clients that only implement XEP-0424
  • Clarify the purpose of the <reason/> element
• Version 0.3.0 and 0.3.1 of XEP-0447 (Stateless file sharing)
  • Describe how to use for multiple files, with body text, without any source in original message and compatibility with various current deployed protocols. (lmw)
  • Fix example for multiple files. (lmw)

Last Call

Last calls are issued once everyone seems satisfied with the current XEP status. After the Council decides whether the XEP seems ready, the XMPP Editor issues a Last Call for comments. The feedback gathered during the Last Call can help improve the XEP before returning it to the Council for advancement to Stable.

• XEP-0333: Displayed Markers (was: Chat Markers)
• XEP-0334: Message Processing Hints
• XEP-0360: Nonzas (are not Stanzas)
• XEP-0386: Bind 2
• XEP-0388: Extensible SASL Profile
• XEP-0392: Consistent Color Generation

Stable

• Version 1.0.0 of XEP-0392 (Consistent Color Generation)
  • Accept as Stable as per Council Vote from 2024-03-27. (XEP Editor (dg))

Deprecated

• No XEP deprecated this month.

Rejected

• XEP-0360: Nonzas (are not Stanzas)

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