@daniel

Thank you for sharing your insights, and for your excellent XMPP app #conversations_IM!

Does anyone know about implementation plans for @dino?

/cc @larma

Are you running #Conversations_im on an Realme or OnePlus devices with stock ROM? Are calls still working for you on version 2.14.2 and above?

Not working would likely manifest itself as a dialog that says "Call not sent" or the operating system opening the default calling app instead of the Conversations UI. Incoming calls would likely be rejected as busy immediately. (There may or may not be other symptoms.)

Please let me know either way and tell me your Android version.

#XMPP

I was about to start a poll asking if #Conversations_im should add a fallback STUN server (stun.conversations.im) for the ~40% of #XMPP servers that don’t offer one via XEP-0215 External Service Discovery.

And then the network of our hosting provider went out for ~5 minutes acting as a good reminder of why the app doesn’t rely on centralized infrastructure…

A quick note to our translators:

First of all thank you for your work!

#Conversations_im 2.15.0 will change the terminology from 'conversation' to 'chat' and from 'close' to 'archive'.
Chat is shorter and feels like a more commonly used word in that context. It avoids some potentially confusing situations in which it's not immediately clear if the app is referring to itself or to to multiple chats.

In your translations use what ever you feel works best in your language!

I don’t use the tablet UI in #Conversations_im. To be honest I hardly think about the fact that Conversations even has one.
However if you are using Conversations on a tablet and have suggestions for low hanging fruit / quality of life improvements I’m happy to implement them.
Recently someone suggested using the chat title as the activity title. (Apparently the highlighted chat is not enough of an indication of what chat you are currently in.)

#XMPP #android

This sounds like a Problem with Letsencrypt. Letsencrypt has stopped cross signing their certifates with a root that older Android versions have.
Introducing conscrypt won't fix the issue.
You'll have to bundle the Letsencrypt root.

Here is how #Conversations_im did it: https://codeberg.org/iNPUTmice/Conversations/commit/88851ea12a9ea9d546a04321742a9656733291c3

The commit has also a link to a blog post explaining the issue.

bundle letsencrypt root certificates · 88851ea12a

as per https://letsencrypt.org/2023/07/10/cross-sign-expiration.html Letsencrypt is dropping support for Android <= 7 by removing cross signing. to keep supporting older Android versions we need to bundle the root cert ourselves.

^Codeberg.org

Ten years ago today I released version 0.1 of #Conversations_im on the Google Play Store as a paid app.

I believe that I have contributed significantly to normalizing the pay-for-the-binary business model for open source apps.

Ten years ago Conversations was one of the first apps to do this and definitely raised some eyebrows. Nowadays it feels like a pretty common thing.

I actually already do something like this based on the #app SMS to URL forwarder (https://f-droid.org/packages/tech.bogomolov.incomingsmsgateway/). The URL corresponds to a very simple endpoint (a CGI written in Bash!) that receives the SMS details and resends it to a #XMPP MUC.

My use case is that I have a mobile phone with an overseas SIM card that I keep at home while I want to know when it receives a SMS.

So having this functionality as part of #Conversations_im would be great.

SMS to URL Forwarder | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

simple incoming SMS to URL forwarder

^f-droid.org

I just read a review of Beeper¹ and I’m now thinking about SMS integration into #Conversations_im in the form of forwarding (mirroring) your SMS to your other #XMPP clients. (For example your desktop client or a tablet that runs Conversations but doesn’t have a SIM card.)

Obviously this would need buy in from at least one desktop client to display forwarded messages (@gajim, @dino).

Do you think this is something you would use?

¹: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/20/24106219/beeper-beta-android-app-chat-messaging

Beeper couldn’t bring iMessage to Android — but it can still make a great chat app

After taking on Apple, Beeper has returned to its original goal of building a chat app for Android that encompasses messages from social platforms and your RCS / SMS service.

^{Emma Roth (The Verge)}

• Yes (48%, 59 votes)
• No (I don’t use SMS) (41%, 51 votes)
• No (other reasons. see reply) (9%, 12 votes)

Google had accepted a version of #Conversations_im with address book integration that explicitly asks the user for consent to process the contact list locally on their device before requesting contacts permission. Our privacy policy included explicit wording w.r.t. local processing of the contact list.

However it’s unthinkable for Google that someone would request contacts permission and then not upload them. A few days later they changed their mind and threatened to remove the app again.
#XMPP

A bunch of XMPP developers and I (@dino, @Monal, #Conversations_im) will have a booth at the Chemnitzer Linux Tage (March 16th & 17th 2024).

Come talk to us about #XMPP and collect some merch.

https://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2024/en/programm/beitrag/262

@clt_news

So we should install it within #fdroid !

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.siacs.conversations/

#Conversations_im

Conversations | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

Encrypted, easy-to-use XMPP instant messenger for your mobile device

^f-droid.org

I hastily threw together a version of #Conversations_im that has no address book integration and doesn’t ask for Contacts permission.
This seems to have made it through Google Play review just now meaning the app is now available on Google Play again.

No indication from Google that they were in the wrong and hallucinated the whole "uploads contact list" thing. Instead I had to walk the path of least resistance and remove the useful and entirely harmless feature of address book integration.

#Conversations_im, die weit verbreitete #XMPP App, wurde aus dem #GooglePlaystore entfernt. Begründung: Conversations würde die Kontaktlisten der Nutzenden hochladen. Das ist natürlich nicht der Fall.

Und jetzt gehen wir mal alle in uns und denken über #WhatsApp und co. nach.

#Google ist einfach nur ein Scheißverein.

Quelle: @daniel 🔗https://gultsch.social/@daniel/111929074071688694

Daniel Gultsch

2024-02-14 09:15:31

Google has just removed #Conversations_im from the Play Store because they think we are uploading the user’s contact list. We don’t.

Appealing the removal didn’t yield any result. Google just repeated the same statement "the app was removed because it uploads the contact list" without even acknowledging any of the arguments I made in the appeal.

I understand that most of my audience here on Mastodon is more ideology aligned with F-Droid but the app sales on Google Play store have contributed significantly to me working (almost) full time on #Conversations_im.

Without the revenue from Google Play I can’t afford this.

Does anyone have a working Android 6 or Android 7 device in a drawer somewhere that they want to donate to the #Conversations_im project? (Anything higher or lower doesn’t work unfortunately)

While refactoring A/V calls I got myself into a situation where I can no longer verify that calls are working on these devices without access to a physical devices. (Emulator has knows issues when it comes to A/V calls.)

The oldest device I have access to *shipped* with Android 8 (and runs Lineage OS 17)

I just finished a refactor of the Jingle File Transfer code in #Conversations_im.
The P2P file transfer code was probably one of the oldest code in Conversations.
The new code should be a lot more resilient and brings support for XEP-0343: Signaling WebRTC datachannels in Jingle¹. This means we should be able to exchange files directly with #XMPP web clients.
Due to the better NAT hole punching of WebRTC vs Socks Bytestreams we now have a higher chance of actual P2P.

¹: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0343.html