XMPP Newsletter

Here you can submit news items for inclusion in the next XMPP Newsletter (as managed by the CommTeam).

Contributors

What determines relevancy?

The submission must ideally be a blog or article about XMPP/Jabber and/or XMPP-based software (clients, servers, libs).

Some exceptions might be made, for example for a release page showing a new release of some XMPP-based software.

However, marketing brochures (e.g. single-page marketing sites) for new products which don't contain information on XMPP, won't be included.

Make sure you read the Basic communication guide for XMPP techies

Editors

TODO/checklist

For the newsletter editors:

1. Collect links in this wiki page, read and validate content
2. Copywriting so it is readable by humans
3. Add images
4. Add clear CTA
5. Subject line and preview text
6. PR on website git repo for blog post (Markdown, Pelican), and peer review
7. Analytics from latest newsletter in spreadsheet
8. Newsletter via Tinyletter
9. Twitter scheduling: text, image, hashtags, link, timestamp
10. Empty this page, keep structure

Planning

October

• 2019-09-27 Fri: end of submission
• 2019-09-27 Fri: PR on GitHub
• 2019-10-01 Tue: newsletter publication, blog post, tweets

Submissions for next newsletter

Newsletter subject/title

[ Friendly, human introduction for the month (remove this mention before publishing) ]

• Prepare for FOSDEM, modern XMPP features, and more news
• FOSDEM 2020 Feb, modernization of XMPP, peer networks

Intro

Welcome to the XMPP newsletter October edition, covering the month of September.

New this month: we added the license (CC by-sa 4.0), and the credits as this is a community effort.

Be kind, inform your friends and colleagues: forward this newsletter!

Articles

Ralph Meijer, chairman of the Board of Directors of the XSF, has written an introductory piece about "XMPP Message Attaching, Fastening, References", specifications currently in progress.

In case of internet shut down, whether by disaster or voluntarily, peer networks are useful. Monal uses Airdrop (wifi and bluetooth) along with XMPP and OMEMO end-to-end encryption.

Monal and Airdrop screenshots

JabberFr, the French XMPP/Jabber community, has again translated the XMPP newsletter in French, merci beaucoup.

We have started a very minimalistic communication guide to help promoting a project through social networks and other means such as blog posts. Could be worth for those involved in XMPP projects and would like to get ideas on how to reach out to different communities.

Events

As usual every year, that time has come: we proudly announce the XMPP Summit 24 and FOSDEM. The 24th XMPP Summit will happen on Thursday 30th and Friday 31st of January, and FOSDEM will be held on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of February. Prepare for the community gathering; now is good time to start booking your flights!

FOSDEM 2020

Software releases

Servers

Réda Housni Alaoui is reviving the formerly dormant Vysper XMPP server (pronounced as "whisper").

Xabber Server v.0.9 alpha is released, with quick installation and management panel and interesting innovations.

MongooseIM 3.4.1 is out now with an important security upgrade, fixing a vulnerability allowed any logged in user to crash the node with malicious stanza on certain (but popular) configurations. Read the whole thread on Twitter for more information.

The Fastpath Service plugin has been released in versions 4.4.4 and 4.4.5., bringing support for managed queued chat requests, such as a support team might use.

TODO: https://discourse.igniterealtime.org/t/search-plugin-1-7-3-released/86207 https://discourse.igniterealtime.org/t/monitoring-service-plugin-1-8-1-released/86208 https://discourse.igniterealtime.org/t/openfire-4-4-2-release/86209

Clients and applications

Profanity, has been released in version 0.7.0 after five months of work, brining OMEMO end-to-end encryption, followed by a 0.7.1 bug fix release.

Multiple Vulnerabilities found in Dino, please update as soon as possible if you are a Dino user.

Converse has been released in versions 5.0.2 and 5.0.3 fixing security issues among others. Converse users may find useful the new plugin to verify HTTP Requests via XMPP from Agayon. For developers, there is a Converse Docker image by odajay.

Conversations has been released in version 2.5.8.

Monal 4 with iOS 13 support and dark mode is out. Mac update is expected to be already released for October.

Services

Christopher Muclumbus, a listing and search engine of public XMPP chats, has been updated with a visual redesign, group chat avatars, link to anonymous web chat and logs if available, and software version pie chart.

Extensions and specifications

This month, three proposed XEPs, and two updated. No XEPs in Last Call, New, or Obsoleted.

Proposed

Message Fastening

Abstract: This specification defines a way for payloads on a message to be marked as being logically fastened to a previous message.

URL: https://xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/fasten.html

XMPP Compliance Suites 2020

Abstract: This document defines XMPP protocol compliance levels.

URL: https://xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/cs-2020.html

Authorization Tokens

Abstract: This document defines an XMPP protocol extension for issuing authentication tokens to client applications and provides methods for managing сlient connections.

URL: https://xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/auth-tokens.html

Updated

• Version 0.13.1 of XEP-0280 (Message Carbons) has been released. Changelog: Add clear example on problematic (spoofed) carbon messages and that they need to be handled. (gl). URL: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html
• Version 1.16.0 of XEP-0060 (Publish-Subscribe) has been released. Changelog:Add a pubsub#rsm disco#info feature to clear confusion (edhelas). URL: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0060.html

Thanks and CTA, Call To Action (remove this mention before publishing)

This XMPP Newsletter is a community collaborative effort. Thanks to Nÿco, Daniel, Jwi, and MDosch for aggregating the news. Thanks Nÿc, Seve, and Jwi for the copywriting.

Please follow and relay the XMPP news on our Twitter account @xmpp.

License

This newsletter is published under CC by-sa license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/