While @suraj_sloth is working on the #UnifiedPush connector side in #Chatty I got a chance to add the code for registering/unregistering #Matrix push gateways in #libcmatrix and Chatty (with this I can readily round trip messages up to the UP distributor):
@agx @suraj_sloth Awesome work! I personally still miss Signal for my usage but this is a huge step towards actually usable Linux phones! :)
@gamey @suraj_sloth We picked Matrix as it has server side protocol support already. This way we can get a foothold that is (once more complete and merged) already useful to users while we can work on improving the bits on the phones (to e.g. allow for wakeup/sleep cycles).
This wouldn't work with signal (https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/12490) so convincing upstream that this would be good to have would be an important step.
@agx @suraj_sloth [1/2] I am aware of the issues with Signals willingness to collaborate with other open source projects and especially third party clients so this isn't very surprising to me. It's my messenger of choice to contact friends and family tho so I need a good Signal app with push notifications, preferably UnifiedPush instead of their unreliable solution. I do wonder how Molly dose things and if that could be used, they managed to implement it somehow!
https://molly.im/
@agx @suraj_sloth [2/2] When Linux phones where new I did blame Purism for their broken promise of Signal support in Chatty but since then I looked into third party Signal clients and how upstream tends to tread them and definitely understand why it never happened. Furthermore there was the Libpurple disaster which turned out to be far less universal than it seemed, you guys could have done more research upfront but it happened the way it did and I understand the reasons behind it all.
@agx @suraj_sloth I still hope for a universal chat app some day because I fell in love with the idea long before Chatty and let's be real, it's a awesome fantasy! :)
@gamey @suraj_sloth I think the Chatty authors were very much aware of libpurple's features and limitations and blaming libpurple for anything in Chatty wouldn't be fair to libpurple.
Protocol support is more than anything else a matter of maintainer will power/interest and funding. Idk where Purism promised Signal but I don't know any Chatty developer that ever thought that more than one well supported IM protocol (besides SMS/MMS) would be realistic *without* adding additional developers.
@gamey @suraj_sloth …and if @kop316 hadn't picked up MMS support we wouldn't be as far as we are today on that front either.
@agx @suraj_sloth @kop316 I actually thought that I didn't need MMS before digging through the Chatty debate years ago and found out that it's also used for longer SMS! It's definitely cool to see people getting the basics ready and Chatty seems to develop like Phosh, continues small but well built and thought out improvements that are always nice to watch! :)
@agx @suraj_sloth Well, the Libpurple issues I know where more about the plugins than the library itself but I assume there was more to it because as far as I know the Matrix implementation was switched away from Libpurple. If the Chatty developers always expected only one IM to work well Purism definitely messed up the marketing there I guess.