Instant Messaging in Fedora Workstation

[Jiri Eischmann]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ananda Samaddar" <ananda.samaddar at zoho.com>
To: desktop at lists.fedoraproject.org
Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 7:29:20 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Instant Messaging in Fedora Workstation

I'm a bit concerned about the enthusiasm for Telegram.  The clients may
be FOSS but the server software isn't.  In addition to this the use of
a central server is troubling with respect to metadata collection.

Has anyone considered Tox?  It's a FOSS replacement for Skype and
doesn't rely on a central server. It's still in a pre-alpha state but
has several working clients.  I've tested qTox and it works nicely
with sound and video through a firewall. There was a Gtk client (Venom)
but it's deprecated.  

A large project like Fedora being interested in Tox could make all the
difference and increase traction to help move it towards a stable and
feature complete release.  I've noticed several people mentioning OTR.
Tox has encryption built in.

I could go on about it but the information is on their website and the
code is available for perusal.

Ananda

Tox was also mentioned by several users, but the number was much smaller compared to Telegram. There is a Tox repository available in Copr BTW: https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/gnikandrov/tox-im/ 

The server part of Telegram is closed source, but they've promised to open source it when it's ready. The API/protocol is open, existing clients are open, the server side is promised to be open in near future. I don't think Telegram scores badly in terms of openness. What they're not planning is an infrastructure of independent servers though.

Jiri