Instant Messaging in Fedora Workstation

[Ananda Samaddar]

On Sun, 26 Apr 2015 07:18:29 -0400 (EDT)
Jiri Eischmann <jeischma at redhat.com> wrote:

> ----- 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

Therein lies the biggest issues with Telegram: it depends on proprietary
server code and also federation is not planned.  I consider these to be
significant problems. Telegram 'promising' to release the code to
their server is not good enough in my opinion.  I hate to go
Stallman (although I have the utmost respect for RMS) on you but
Telegram users are still tied to the perceived and/or actual benevolence
of the server vendor.

Tox is already p2p and cross platform.  The only cross platfrom FOSS
voip application that springs to mind is Jitsi.  Tox works through a
firewall; both my machines have the default firewall settings from the
netinstall iso, i.e. fairly restrictive.

If popularity is an important criterion then surely Skype would be top
of the list for inclusion in Fedora and Gnome.  For reasons too obvious
to state that won't and shouldn't happen.  There appears to be a
chicken-egg scenario here unfortunately with regards to Tox.

Ananda