147 lines
7 KiB
Markdown
147 lines
7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Sprint in the cold north"
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date: 2019-10-03T10:01:38+02:00
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tags: [XMPP, Sprint]
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---
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Another episode of the XMPP sprints series happened this weekend close to
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Stockholm in the Nacka prefecture, in a house we rented. Significant
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improvements to the sprint infra this time are sauna and crêpes!
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We worked together on improving a new groupchat bookmarks specification, file
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transfer interoperability issues, and a future landing page for new XMPP
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users! As usual, every developer meetup comes up with its share of bug fixes,
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new ideas, and improvements.
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### Groupchat Bookmarks (Bookmarks 2)
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Last year, Dave Cridland and JC Brand submitted a new specification titled
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["Bookmarks 2 (This time it's Serious)"][bookmarks-pep2]. This XEP didn't get
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much attention in the community until this weekend.
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As mentioned in a [previous article][cbg-sprint-bookmarks], there are multiple
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specifications for bookmarks in XMPP, one using the [Private XML
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storage][bookmarks-private], and another one using [PEP as
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storage][bookmarks-pep1]. Not so long after the Cambridge sprint last year,
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Daniel submitted a [conversion XEP][bookmarks-conversion] to facilitate client
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behaviour and thus user experience.
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This new specification also uses PEP as storage but it brings a few
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improvements to the table. It splits updates to the bookmark storage into per
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entry operations instead of updating the whole storage at once. This allows
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for finer grained handling in clients and prevents some race conditions.
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The XEP came up with its share of challenges that some of us attempted to fix
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in a [pull request][bookmarks-PR-835] that has been submitted and is now
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awaiting feedback from the authors.
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[Bookmarks 2][bookmarks-pep2] is now implemented in at least 5 clients,
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([Conversations][conversations-commit], [Dino][dino-commit],
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[Gajim][gajim-commit], [Movim][movim-commit], [Renga][renga-commit], and some
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initial work in poezio), but will not be used as long as the feature is not
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advertised by the server. A new [prosody module][bookmarks-prosody] is also
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available for adventurous services operators.
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<figure>
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<video controls="true" muted="true">
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<source src="../bookmarks-sync.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
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</video>
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<figcaption style="font-size: 85%; font-weight: 400">Bookmarks synchronisation</figcaption>
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</figure>
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[cbg-sprint-bookmarks]: https://bouah.net/2018/08/cambridge-xmpp-sprint/
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[bookmarks-private]: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0049.html
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[bookmarks-pep1]: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0048.html
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[bookmarks-pep2]: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0402.html
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[bookmarks-conversion]: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0411.html
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[bookmarks-PR-835]: https://github.com/xsf/xeps/pull/835
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[bookmarks-prosody]: https://modules.prosody.im/mod_bookmarks2.html
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[conversations-commit]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/tree/bookmarks2
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[dino-commit]: https://github.com/dino/dino/commit/74c29d4df19f97b9b67bbc3c1a963a8729be69fd
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[gajim-commit]: https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/commit/3d381a9863679ea97a0f33a5f6dbd2e9ee790c9c
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[movim-commit]: https://github.com/movim/movim/commit/2b32cde26c27417d075f7696ee04da94e5df3df3
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[renga-commit]: https://github.com/HaikuArchives/Renga/commit/d6cbfe4ad90d860c1af234219af5bd0931c4aba5
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### New landing page
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Roel and I worked on an idea that came up at the UX sprint in Brussels in
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January to have a landing page for new users. This page would recommend a
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specific server depending on different factors that would be gathered
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automatically for the most part (if not all). This is more or less similar to
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other portals like [joinmastodon][joinmastodon], or [nextcloud sign-up
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process][nextcloud-signup].
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Building up the website isn't the hardest part. What is hard is finding ways
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to convey to the user what "federation" or "public network" mean. Roel teaches
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in Interaction Design and was a great help over the weekend. We came up with a
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narrative for the project and a sketch for a sign-in flow.
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The project is far from being over, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lots
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of work needs to be done with the "stakeholders", that is mainly users and
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server operators.
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To know what server to recommend to users we first need to get a list of
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servers we are confident about and willing to recommend. This would mandate
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discussing the issue with server operators to get feedback on a required
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"feature set" and policies. All this would then be fed into usability testing
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sessions for users to validate all of it. After that, we would need lots of
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promotion around it and that's also going to take a significant amount of
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effort.
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While I am excited about all this I don't think diving in head first is a
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good strategy and I would rather take it slow.
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[joinmastodon]: https://joinmastodon.org
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[nextcloud-signup]: https://nextcloud.com/signup
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### And more
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Pulkomando has been working on implementing IBR support in [Renga][Renga], and
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reported with Link Mauve issues about server implementations that weren't
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respecting the specification. The issue in prosody has been fixed and one has
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been opened [for ejabberd][IBR_ejabberd].
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Larma tackled issues with bot bridging where users of bridged networks are
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displayed as talking through the bot. This happens for example with
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[matterbridge][matterbridge]. This could be improved UI-wise but requires
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some groundwork and spawned [discussions][MUC_thread] about the groupchat
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protocol in some specific cases.
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Fiaxh spent some time improving the empty placeholder for no opened
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conversations in Dino. Here is a preview:
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Other people worked on Jingle File Transfer interoperability. They narrowed
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down the cause of a somewhat old issue [in gajim][FT_gajim], discovered an
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issue with the epoll backend [in prosody][FT_prosody], and another [in
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dino][FT_dino].
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[Renga]: https://github.com/HaikuArchives/Renga
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[IBR_ejabberd]: https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/issues/3045
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[matterbridge]: https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge
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[MUC_thread]: https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/standards/2019-September/036495.html
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[FT_gajim]: https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/issues/9692
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[FT_prosody]: https://issues.prosody.im/1438
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[FT_dino]: https://github.com/dino/dino/commit/5d65f047d0fd1a1ed4a3bbe076d5cb4df76e7d5f
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### You can contribute too!
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I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that you can also
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[contribute][sprint-guidelines] to sprints! If you are a developer, a
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translator, working on documentation, or in any other way contributing to an
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XMPP implementation, we encourage you to find 2-3 other people close to you
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and organize a sprint!
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_TODO: come up with a platform to show interest close to you._
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The [XMPP Standards Foundation][XSF] (specifically the [SCAM][SCAM] team) will
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be happy to help you get it all sorted, and also provide some budget for your
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event if necessary. Please do [contact us][sprint-room]!
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[sprint-guidelines]: https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Sprints#Organizing_an_event
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[XSF]: https://xmpp.org
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[SCAM]: https://xmpp.org/about/xsf/scam-team
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[sprint-room]: xmpp:xmpp-sprint@chat.cluxia.eu?join
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