Since being frustrated with all the current major social networks, I've been playing around with an idea for a semi-decentralized/semi-federated chat service (like IRC but not quite), but it's just in my head for now.
Can someone recommend any sites where one can put up the seed/initial draft for an idea for others to collaborate on and add to? GitHub?
Have you taken a look matrix.org? Out of interest: What would you do differently?
Pure communications protocols are starting to feel like a losing game for me these days - the world is so carved up and walled again that I really need someone to build a new Trillian that instead of speaking protocols, hooks directly into the UI widgets on my desktop and phone so unify my view of communications and let me inject features (the only one I want being OTR messaging and I guess let's bring Zmodem back so we can stuff binaries to each other).
It is practical if you use modern clients. For example I replaced Hangouts with Conversations.im for all my family members and they are very happy with it.
So why not just fix the broken parts, instead of inventing hundredth messaging protocol that will be forgotten in a year?
You then need to pick a server that supports everything you want, since things like a mailbox for when you’re offline are optional extras. Integration with mobile push services so that XMPP doesn’t kill your phone’s battery is an optional extra that is marked “experimental”.
A result of the near-death of XMPP, that I’ve discovered recently, is that there is no trustworthy iOS client that supports OMEMO - e2e encrypted communication is table stakes now, and XMPP can’t provide that to me in a manner that is usable for me.
I’m general, if you can find a server that provides what you want, and a desktop client that provides what you want, and you have no use for mobile communications, XMPP as it stands is probably as fine as it was two decades ago - but we have these things called smartphones now, I don’t want to be bound to a desk in order to stay in touch with my friends and partners, and I don’t see XMPP defragmenting any time soon.
I haven't fully thought it through and I'm not even sure if it would be viable in practice, but it involves BitTorrent + Magnet URIs.