This also suggests the Electoral College no longer favors Republicans, and is somewhere between neutral and actually favoring Democrats again.

I don’t agree with this. Republican majority States are still over represented. They just happened to also win the popular vote this time. The scenario of Democrats winning popular vote but not electoral is still more likely than it happening to Republicans

Is there a lemmy community similar to this one that allows discussion posts? This community only allows link sharing.

would you recommend Snikket server (or Prosody) for 1:1, group calls and screen sharing?

Answering this first so it doesn’t get buried down. Screen sharing wouldn’t be supported by xmpp since its just messaging, but I believe Jitsi has that feature. But for the rest, snikket and conversations (for android) I would recommend, yes.

When I decided to try XMPP, I had to do a lot of research to decide which applications I should use for the server and client.

Whatever is the first answer you get from a web search should be fine. Most sources recommend conversations for client, but all the other recommendations you’ll see are good too. For server, the easiest to setup is snikket, but all the other and up to date implementations should work okay, although they might need some configuration if you want all the modern messaging features.

If we told two people to use these two software independently, they would start using Matrix much more faster than XMPP.

Why do you think so? Let’s assume a user who doesn’t self host. XMPP clients are far more stable and error free, whereas matrix has random issues every now and then, especially with encryption and public groups.

XMPP clients are a lot more customizable and come in different models. Matrix has only one client that works well (and some forks of it that look roughly the same). I’d say that’s a win for XMPP for new users.

Now let’s say it’s a self hosting user. I don’t need to say much here, matrix is notorious for self hosting issues, and being a massive resource hog. XMPP, you have snikket, which works out of the box without issues and can be hosted on a raspberry pi even.

I may be biased here, so I urge you to tell me, in what way would a new user adopt matrix faster? I can tell you one. Matrix has corporate funding and has managed to advertise better. That’s their only win.

With all due respect, this is a very biased view

Wanna set up a server? Prosody (which has a hassle free out of the box experience through snikket)

Need a client? Conversations

The default softwares are easy to use for new users.

For matrix, however, you are forced to use synapse. You complain that xmpp is not a single protocol, but in reality, all the major implementations are compatible. Can you say the same about matrix? The other implementations aren’t even close to achieving this.

Xmpp’s extensions are a powerful feature, and the issues you think it presents do not exist with xmpp anymore, but is actually the status quo for Matrix.

XMPP Works fine when it’s setup or when you don’t manage the hosting, but God is it painful to self host an xmpp server.

I recommend you use snikket if you’re having trouble selecting plugins, because it has everything you need out of the box and its super easy to setup.

It even needs a special setup to work on restricted networks via port 80/443 because it wants port 5222 and 5223,

Isn’t that just a configuration in prosody / snikket? What implementation did you use that didn’t let you configure this? Or are you expecting major implementations to default to port 80/443? Because that would be quite problematic.

Most basic communication features in 2024 such as replies reactions quoting threads etc.etc. are unsupported ootb, and you need both a client that supports the extensions (often very slow to adapt “new” standards AND a server that has enabled the plugin for that feature.

This is already supported by the major clients. I know for sure that conversations on android (and I suppose the many clients based on it) supports it. For server implementations, it is available out of the box on snikket, and it is a plugin you have to enable on prosody.

It’s the issues with XMPP’s spec: you don’t just use XMPP, you use XMPP + your favorite optional spec implementations.

Sorry, what’s the issue exactly? You called it an issue and I fail to see the problem. The X in XMPP stands for “extensible”, so it is being used precisely as intended, so that is still XMPP.

You could use your favorite extensions if you want, but all up-to-date implementations follow the standard defined by XMPP, and it includes all features of a modern messaging experience

If your friends aren’t on the same server/client combo then you won’t be able to communicate with them (effectively).

You have to be going out of your way to have a non-compliant server or client. This isn’t really an issue that happens.

If it were to get a single, matrix-style “spec release” (think an aggregation of existing features into one collection) that contains/requires a bunch of modern chat features I’ve come to expect from programs

That’s how it is today though! I see the issue, you said you haven’t tried it in years. Admittedly, I only started with XMPP 2 years ago but haven’t had any of the issues you mentioned. Not sure when this became the status quo, but it is pretty awesome. Maybe it is worth trying again :)

Have you used XMPP recently and ran into the issue of non-obscure servers, clients, or self-hostable implementations using different extensions or not supporting them? (I actually haven’t experienced this even on the obscure ones, but can’t confirm for all of them). Please do not make that accusation, because that I’d really not what happens in reality.

it’s hardly the standard

Why not when… It literally is? And all major implementations follow it? That is by definition a standard.

and we’re not really talking about plain XMPP then anymore.

Why not? “extensible” is in the name. It is meant to be extended. The protocol is being used exactly as planned and intended.

Can you please explain why? A quick look at the spec for both protocols shows you that matrix is literally a hundred times more complex, so I don’t understand the basis of the contrary. The matrix creators have shown they are okay with increased complexity under the pretext of a more complete experience, but in reality, XMPP has achieved the same features with far less complexity.

If you’re speaking about self hosting, again, I don’t see how, as matrix is notorious for self hosting issues. XMPP’s snikket works out of the box and has all the commonly used features and plugins pre-baked. The underlying prosody implementation is a step down, but is also quite easy as long as you know what plugins and options to activate (and if you don’t, then use snikket).

Still don’t understand the need for matrix when xmpp is a much more battle tested standard, far more lightweight, way less complex, and easier to make clients for.

Even if I disable account registration, I may still be liable if somehow the content ended up on my instance due to federation right? Or is that not a concern?

Is there a still a concern for self hosters of public instances regarding CSAM content? And if so, any guidance on how to mitigate it?

I am very interested in self hosting, but I am worried of its legal repercussions, especially since I am an immigrant in the country where I live and afraid to get in any legal trouble.

Many people will always be obsessed with “engagement”, and there’s no saving them. They’ve been under the influence of big tech social media for too long, and it becomes an addiction.

The fediverse is an option to get away from this, but it certainly is not a cure. The only cure is the willingness to help yourself and change.

You know who else is obsessed with engagement? Clickbait authors

Then yes indeed were thinking differently. To me, email has already lost to big tech. The technical possibility of hosting email is there, but you can’t even reach most users of the world without a lot of work.

There’s several vulnerabilities:

• the fediverse unfortunately remains quite centralized. Most users wanna join the big servers. If it wasn’t for the big servers literally driving people away, we would’ve been even more centralized
• most people have no issue with corporate presence in the fediverse. They’re okay with blue sky and okay with threads. In fact, clearly Gargaron is okay with meta and threads.
• big tech already has a federated server that dwarves the rest of the fediverse combined: threads. Yes it’s still not quite there yet, but if they complete its federation, they will dominate it.
• gargaron showed he’s okay selling out to Meta. What prevents another instance admin? A corporation could easily offer enough money to a handful of instance admins and control all these instances.

In my opinion, the fediverse as it exists today is very vulnerable to domination by big tech. The only reason it hasn’t happened yet is it is too small for them to care that much.

If the fediverse ever becomes mainstream, big tech will dominate it. If we want to fight big tech, we need to rethink our strategy and the fediverse, because right now, the fediverse is not ready to take it on.

The fediverse will never destroy big tech unfortunately. In their worst case, they will incorporate it and easily dominate.

Is there even a good alternative to Google? DuckDuckGo does not count to me as it is close source

To each their own I guess, databases are ridiculously expensive when managed and I always self host.

A team? For what OP described, all you need is one person

That’s pretty high… Leads me to consider hosting an instance on local hardware. I know that’s a whole security mess to deal with, but it night be worthwhile since I have lots of spare storage.