GSoC/2019/Project Ideas

Introduction

This wiki page lists all GSoC project ideas and their related software projects under the umbrella of the XSF.

Please note that to assess students applying to GSoC for XSF projects we want them to have submitted some small patches to one of the XMPP projects in advance, as this gives us an idea of their general ability to interact with the projects and submit patches. These should only be a day or two's work, and shouldn't be onerous!

A list of teaser tasks is given in the projects section, but please join the chat rooms for the respective projects and discuss them there, where mentors will be able to help you and know what you're up to. There are different teasers for different codebases, and more projects with new teasers will be appearing here over the next few days.

More information about XMPP and the XSF at GSOC 2019 can be found here.

Please not that the student's final project proposals may, but are not required to, be for projects on the ideas list. Students with their own GSoC project ideas are encouraged to talk to the respective project contact persons about the feasibility of their idea.

How to add your project idea

If you do not have already an account on this wiki, then ask someone in the jdev@muc.xmpp.org chatroom for help (sorry, we don't allow open registration because we're trying to avoid the spammers).

Next, copy the template below to create a new entry and fill out all the required information.

Example Project Template

Website: https://example.org/

Source Code: https://example.org/source

Description:: This is just an example project which can be used as template.

Project Contact Person: John Doe <john.doe@example.org>

List of Teaser Tasks: https://example.org/issues?tag=gsoc-teaser

Contact chat: chat@muc.example.org

Contact forum: https://discuss.example.org/

Idea A

Brief explanation: Add support for A to example project.

Involved Technologies: Smalltalk, FORTRAN77, COBOL

Mentor(s): Foo Bar (TheBatz) <foo.bar@exampole.org>

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• Foo
• Bar
• Baz

Milestones:

1. Implement parser and unit tests for parsing
2. Implement protocol logic
3. Interoperability tests against a different implementation

A is a promising new XMPP protocol extension. Its specification includes a ton of buzzwords ranging from blockchain to machine learning. But since it is very young protocol, there are no existing implementations. The goal of this project is to change that situation.

Idea B

Brief explanation: Add support for A to example project.

Involved Technologies: Smalltalk, FORTRAN77, COBOL

Mentor(s): Foo Bar (TheBatz) <foo.bar@exampole.org>

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• Foo
• Bar
• Baz

Milestones:

1. Implement parser and unit tests for parsing
2. Implement protocol logic
3. Interoperability tests against a different implementation

A is a promising new XMPP protocol extension. Its specification includes a ton of buzzwords ranging from blockchain to machine learning. But since it is very young protocol, there are no existing implementations. The goal of this project is to change that situation.

List of Project Ideas

Ignite Realtime's Smack

Website: https://igniterealtime.org/projects/smack/

Source Code: https://github.com/igniterealtime/Smack/

Description:: Ignite Realtime creates free and open source software with and around the XMPP ecosystem. Smack is an XMPP client library for Java/Android applications.

Project Contact Person: Florian Schmaus <flo@geekplace.eu>

List of Teaser Tasks: Smack Teaser Tasks

Contact chat: open_chat@conference.igniterealtime.org

Contact forum: https://discourse.igniterealtime.org/c/smack

WebSocket support

Brief explanation: Add support for XMPP over WebSocket (RFC 7395) to the XMPP Client Library Smack.

Involved Technologies: Android compatible Java 8, WebSockets

Mentor(s): Paul Schaub (vanitasvitae) <vanitasvitae@fsfe.org>

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• Being able to connect to XMPP services via WebSocket.
• Definition of a WebSocket interface on top of the used WebSocket libraries, allowing for different WebSocket implementations (one implementation must be OkHttp for Android support).

Milestones:

1. Design and implement WebSocket interface to use by XmppWebsocketconnection
2. Implement automatic XMPP client to server transport discovery (Implicit TLS, TCP, WebSocket, BOSH)
3. Interoperability tests against a different implementation
4. Plug Smack with WebSocket into Spark, our FOSS XMPP client

Currently Smack can establish connections via TCP/IP and HTTP via BOSH. WebSockets are yet another way to connect to a server.

Prosody IM

Website: https://prosody.im/

Source Code: https://hg.prosody.im/

Description:: Prosody is a lightweight XMPP server that aims to be easy to set up and configure, and efficient with system resources.

Project Contact Person: Matthew Wild <mwild1@gmail.com>

List of Teaser Tasks: https://issues.prosody.im/?q=state%3Dopen+difficulty%3Deasy

Contact chat: prosody@conference.prosody.im web client

Standalone mod_firewall

Brief explanation: This project would produce a version of mod_firewall that runs standalone and can be connected with any XEP-0114 compliant server.

Involved Technologies: Lua, XMPP

Mentor(s): Matthew Wild (MattJ) <mwild1@gmail.com>, Kim Alvefur (Zash)

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• Standalone server-independent mod_firewall
• Server-side implementation that uses external mod_firewall for determining whether/how to to route a stanza.

Milestones:

1. Design and document server-independent protocol for communicating with external mod_firewall.
2. Develop standalone mod_firewall process that connects to a XEP-0114 compliant server and implements above protocol.
3. Develop server-side code to communicate with external mod_firewall and allow it to filter stanzas.

Prosody's mod_firewall is a rule-based XMPP-layer firewall that is useful for security and anti-spam purposes. However it currently only works with Prosody, and needs to be loaded into the main process.

This project would produce a version of mod_firewall that runs standalone and can be connected with any XEP-0114 compliant server.

The project would include:

• Protocol design: develop and document (in XEP form) a protocol whereby a server may submit a stanza to the standalone mod_firewall and receive a decision.
• Coding (Lua): adapt mod_firewall's core code to run standalone, and connect to servers as a component implementing this protocol.
• Coding: Additionally add support for the new protocol to an XMPP server of your choice.

Prosody plugin installer

Brief explanation: This project would produce an easy way to install and manage plugins for the Prosody server.

Involved Technologies: Lua

Mentor(s): Matthew Wild (MattJ) <mwild1@gmail.com>, Kim Alvefur (Zash)

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• Commands to install, update, remove and list installed plugins.
• Scripts to build and manage a repository of plugins.

Milestones:

1. Implement command to install a plugin from a repository
2. Implement commands to remove and update installed plugins
3. Develop scripts to build a plugin repository.

Prosody has hundreds of community modules that provide additional features and extensions to the core server. Currently installing these is a manual process that currently involves a number of manual steps.

The goal of this project would be to produce simple commands to install, update and remove community modules. Rather than inventing a new package manager, the project would ideally build on top of the luarocks project.

Implement MIX

Brief explanation: This project would add support for the MIX suite of XEPs to Prosody

Involved Technologies: Lua, XMPP

Mentor(s): Matthew Wild (MattJ) <mwild1@gmail.com>, Kim Alvefur (Zash)

Deliverables / Expected Results:

• A server with support for creating and joining MIX channels.
• A suite of Scansion tests for testing correct MIX behaviour

Milestones:

1. Implement support for creating, joining and exchanging messages with MIX rooms.
2. Implement channel administration (XEP-406)

MIX is a new protocol for group chats in XMPP that provides a modern alternative to the existing MUC protocol. It is not currently widely implemented, but this project would provide a server-side implementation against which clients can be built and tested.

Basic support may be found in experimental branches of Conversations, but it is expected that this implementation may be tested through use of Scansion and/or other client-side testing tools and libraries.

Poezio

Website: https://poez.io

Source Code: https://lab.louiz.org/poezio/poezio

Description: poezio is a free console XMPP client, written in Python 3 using the ncurses library.

Project Contact Person: Emmanuel Gil “Link Mauve” Peyrot <linkmauve@linkmauve.fr>, Maxime “pep” Buquet <pep@bouah.net>

List of Teaser Tasks: https://lab.louiz.org/poezio/poezio/issues?label_name=Easy

Contact chat: poezio@muc.poez.io

Multi-account

Brief explanation: Implement multi-account support in poezio (https://lab.louiz.org/poezio/poezio/issues/3456)

Involved technologies: Python 3, XMPP

Mentors: Emmanuel Gil “Link Mauve” Peyrot, Maxime “pep” Buquet

Deliverables / Expected results:

• Poezio with multi-account support
• Being able to switch from one account to another (a la irssi, ^X ?)
• Adapt UI/UX where necessary
• Tests for the added/rewritten parts

Milestones:

1. Get familiar with slixmpp’s stream handling and poezio’s internals.
2. Break down the core module further, to make it more testable and easier to integrate changes
3. Allow core to use multiple streams
4. Integrate these changes in the UI

Infinite scrolling using MAM

Brief explanation: Implement infinite scroll using MAM in poezio

Involved technologies: Python3, XMPP

Mentors: Emmanuel Gil “Link Mauve” Peyrot, Maxime “pep” Buquet

Deliverables / Expected results:

• Infinite scroll in Tabs (https://lab.louiz.org/poezio/poezio/issues/3052)
• Tests for the added/rewritten parts

Milestones:

1. Get familiar with slixmpp’s xep_0313 plugin and poezio’s Tabs (MucTab, ConversationTab, etc.)
2. Display a bunch of mock messages on scroll
3. Integrate MAM fetching during this scroll

PubSub browser / management

Brief explanation: Add a new tab to poezio to let the user manage PubSub nodes.

Involved technologies: Python 3, XMPP, ncurses

Mentors: Emmanuel Gil “Link Mauve” Peyrot, Maxime “pep” Buquet

Deliverables / Expected results:

• List the nodes present on a service
• Display the metadata of a node
• Display the configuration of a node
• Allow the user to change the configuration of a node
• List the items present on a node
• Let the user publish a new item, or edit an existing one

Milestones:

1. Get familiar with slixmpp’s xep_0060 plugin and poezio’s internals
2. Write some views displaying mock data in a new poezio tab
3. Wire up the views to the data provided by slixmpp

Dino

Website: https://dino.im/

Source Code: https://github.com/dino/dino

Description:: Dino is a modern open-source chat client for the desktop. It focuses on providing a clean and reliable Jabber/XMPP experience while having your privacy in mind.

Project Contact Persons: fiaxh and larma <team@dino.im>

List of Teaser Tasks: https://github.com/dino/dino/issues

Contact chat: chat@dino.im

Jingle File Transfer

Brief explanation: The XMPP protocol includes a signaling system to set-up peer-to-peer connections, dubbed Jingle. One usecase for Jingle is to transfer files without an intermediary. This project idea is about adding support for file transfers using Jingle, fully integrated with current Dino features.

Involved technologies: XMPP, Jingle/WebRTC, Vala, Networking

Mentors: Marvin W (larma), fiaxh

Deliverables / Expected results:

• Support for sending and receiving Jingle file transfers
• Automatically detect when peer-to-peer file transfer usage makes sense instead of http file uploads
• Support for WebRTC-based Jingle transport for compatibility with web-based clients
• Implement OpenPGP and OMEMO encrypted file transfers

Inline link preview

Brief explanation: When sharing links using chat messages, it is often hard to see what is behind the link. Many clients thus provide previews of the linked content. We'd like to add this functionality and give a preview or embed for all kind of links, for example by parsing the Open Graph protocol, similar metadata or heuristic approaches. We also want to explore ways to send preview information with the message to reduce workload for the receiving devices.

Involved technologies: XMPP, Vala, GTK+, Web, OpenGraph

Mentors: Marvin W (larma), fiaxh

Deliverables / Expected results:

• User interface widget to display metadata, suitable for preview image, title, abstract and the original url/domain.
• Automatic generation of metadata, working with major websites. This should be done in a generic fassion, not targeting a specific website
• Design or reuse a specification for sending metadata with XMPP messages