On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 23:06, Dave Cridland <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 18:28, Matthew Wild <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 17:48, Dave Cridland <[email protected]> wrote: >> > On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 15:20, Matthew Wild <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 14:31, Dave Cridland <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > As far as I know, GC3 has no published specification and is not an XSF >> >> > activity; I've avoided that name to (hopefully) avoid confusion with it. >> >> >> >> Okay, I'll take the bait... :) >> >> >> >> Apart from being hashed out by multiple XSF members, including at a >> >> sprint, and presented and discussed at an XSF summit... >> >> >> > >> > I don't think that's the right definition of an XSF activity, is it? >> > >> > By that set of metrics, other XSF activities include Modern XMPP and the >> > Jabber.org XMPP service. In fact, that even suggests Prosody is an XSF >> > activity, doesn't it? Clearly that cannot be the case. >> >> I think this is a pointless debate because the line can be drawn >> wherever someone wants it to be drawn, and you've demonstrated it can >> be taken to extremes. I would argue that your classification of GC3 as >> not an XSF activity was taking it to the opposite extreme. >> > > Not really, I used your definition, which you used to suggest GC3 was an XSF > activity. > > Modern XMPP, jabber.org, and even Prosody are all worked on by XSF members, > including at a sprint, and presented and discussed at an XSF summit. > > My argument was that that your definition was demonstrably incorrect since > none of those are XSF activities; I didn't take anything to extremes. I > didn't even pose a strawman. I did explain why each of your criteria were > flawed both individually and as a whole, though, and since this was your > argument for why GC3 is an XSF Activity, I felt that demonstrated that at the > very least, if it is an XSF Activity it's not for the reasons you suggested. > > Anyway, if you still insist it's an XSF activity, it doesn't really change > matters.
My point, if anything, was that "XSF activity" is vague enough to be whatever anyone decides it is. See below, where you bring XSF membership into the equation, but earlier you discounted XSF membership status of individuals in determining whether something is an XSF activity. As I said a couple of emails ago, this branch of the discussion is only going to be circular. >> I don't know... you as an individual just submitted it without (as far >> as I know) any of the XSF being involved at all. >> > > I'll assume this is just a joke. > > Unless I've missed my reapplication window somehow. See above :) > People have asked about GC3 both in the chatrooms and on this list and > received no response. I can only apologize if I've missed queries, that was obviously unintentional. I'll see if I can find where this happened. But I also don't see why the whole thing has to depend on me - multiple people with XSF experience have been involved, and could also be addressed questions, and could also carry this forward. > On this mailing list, Nicolas, Singpolyma and Goffi have been the only ones > mentioning it, and only since September. Goffi explicitly asked you for an > update, and there was no response. I have to say evidence is against your > assertion there. It seems that only the multiple people mentioning GC3 are the only people mentioning it, indeed. > In addition, other people have more generally mentioned new MUC features > (including whole threads), and GC3 hasn't been explained in any of them. > > To be absolutely clear, I'm not suggesting you're doing anything wrong here. > People get busy, life gets in the way, and this is all a volunteer thing. I > have certainly dropped out for months at a time and been unresponsive. But > having documents (if they exist) published, and discussions in the open, > means that other people can (and have, thanks!) picked up work in my absence, > and newcomers have joined, seen older dormant work, and raIsed it again. All this is true, and it would be amazing if people actually did that. >> Ideally they wouldn't just invent a group chat >> protocol and submit it without researching existing efforts or >> bringing it up at a summit. > > I didn't want to wait another 10 months, and also I didn't write the XEP > without reviewing existing MUC options. In particular, I've spent roughly the > past 3 years working with ejabberd's muc-sub, and MongooseIM's muclight, and > I think I've a reasonable grasp of the benefits (and shortfalls) of both. > I've also written a client, from scratch, partly in order to understand what > the best practice was for MUC, and better understand its limitations with > mobile. I have done my homework, though of course you may disagree with the > result. > > Again, I have no visibility on GC3, and didn't actually think it was actively > being worked on; there have been no status updates in well over a year, and > there's no other suggestion of ongoing activity. There has been some progress, but not significant and not on any specification. >> I get the impression that you think GC3 is some specification that is >> being withheld from the XSF standards process. The only reason "the >> GC3 XEP" hasn't been submitted is because it doesn't exist. To make it >> exist, someone needs to collate the notes from the discussions at the >> sprint, summit and online and write it up in XEP syntax. There are >> still some unsolved questions about the approach (but, from a skim, >> probably fewer than the document you have submitted). >> > > You have the wrong impression. Certainly I think GC3 is outside of the > standards process we have in the XSF, and outside of its venues for > discussion, and I think that's a shame. I think you have the wrong impression. With no standard it's impossible to work within or without the standards process. The XSF standards process literally begins with a document submission, but nobody has written and submitted a suitable document. > I did ask you and Kev, back at the Summit in 2025, to publish a XEP of some > form, and I think I asked you to raise it on the mailing list. The XEP I was > told couldn't be written because there were too many disagreements about what > it would contain. I have a vague recollection that it couldn't be discussed > on the list for fear of overwhelming the list? In any case, I took this to > mean it was to be done outside of the XSF for the time being. My question is, if you're so interested in getting something published in this space, why not help with that? > That's allowed, of course. Lots of things happen outside of the XSF. I do > wish that some of them (including GC3, but also other things) were done > within the XSF, but I lost those arguments years ago. Again, this "within" vs "without" distinction simply does not exist, it's the same as the "XSF activity" debate. > But it does make it awkward to run things outside the XSF then argue that I > shouldn't do something within the XSF as a result. Besides, standards work on > XMPP outside of the XSF or IETF feels wrong to me - if it were anyone else, > I'd find it outright suspect. Again, the "outside of the XSF" is just not a thing. > I don't know where GC3 is being discussed (if it still is). There was a > chatroom address on your presentation back in the Summit in 2025, but I > definitely cannot recall what that was, I don't know where to find it now, > and it has never been posted to this mailing list as far as I can find. There was a MUC, yes, it was a last-minute addition to the slides so that interested people could continue discussion of the topic. I didn't think to post it to the list, because it's not the only place where discussion is permitted (standards talk tends to happen here or in the xsf/jdev MUCs). > Personally, I agree. If I thought for a single moment I could write a > successful MUC update/replacement of this magnitude on my own, I'd code first > and XEP later. But I don't think I can do this alone, and so I'm drawing on > the collective expertise. I already noted I don't think I've even got the > requirements right yet. > > Where we disagree, I think, is how we get that expertise. I don't think we > get it effectively by trying to assemble a team outside of the XSF (or > alongside, or however you wish to put it). I think CG3 is, if anything, a > demonstration of that not working. I think this may be the whole basis of the misunderstanding? I don't know what "team" you think was assembled. I don't think I have the capacity to organise such a thing! I think I initially discussed GC3 with Zash and Jonas in the Prosody developer channel, and with Kev around the same time. There was interest, and it organically became one of the main topics of a sprint because I presented the notes and ideas I had been making, and the people present (myself, Conversations and Dino developers, and a few others) had some discussion about it. Then the next round of feedback was at the summit. Maybe, in hindsight, the correct thing to do would have been to actually assemble a team, as a SIG or something. But I know back then it didn't feel like a suitable option - my perspective at the time was that the majority of the community was not really interested in a MUC 2.0, but rather MIX. Now I guess I was wrong, and there is significant broad interest in a MUC 2.0. All this to say, it was just some sharing of ideas and notes between interested parties. It is not, and never has been, some grand organised away-from-the-XSF scheme. Quite the opposite, if anything. Just scraps of notes and ideas, with the goal of maturing into a XEP. > I cannot ignore something I don't know anything about; please stop saying > that, I've asked you already. I'm sorry if you feel you know nothing about it. I presented it at the summit, and you were there, so I guess I made assumptions in this regard. > The trouble with this argument is, in any case, that the very concept of GC3 > actually slows things down. Of the four (!) mentions of GC3 on this list, two > are discussing other work predicated on GC3. Progress is hindered by the > threat of future conflicting work. It's like the dream of the perfect MUC > replacement, it becomes the enemy of the good MUC replacement, or something. I absolutely agree. > Feel free to hijack this thread. I would be delighted to have my ideas shot > down by something more sensible. With today's Prosody security release out of the way, I will make some time tomorrow to gather everything GC3 related into a mailing list post. As I said in my previous email, I don't want to stop anyone from working on a MUC successor that's in the spirit of "fix MUC" rather than "replace MUC with an entirely different system" (i.e. MIX). Your proposal is clearly aligned with that same GC3 approach, which is great - I, and as I gradually discovered, others too, want to see such a thing. But it's frustrating that it wasn't based on any of the work that had been done so far. I accept a large part of the responsibility for this, as based on your email I apparently managed to entirely miscommunicate the whole thing, to the point where you didn't even feel it was worth reaching out before publishing this alternative proposal. Someone once said, many years ago, that they believed most XMPP developers were working on communication protocols because they were actually rather bad at communication themselves. I sadly recognise myself in such a statement. But I try... > I would happily incorporate them into the XEP, rename the thing to GC3, and > hand the whole thing over and remove my name. Ideal outcome. This doesn't sound like an ideal outcome. It seems you are actually interested in this space, and have the time and motivation to work on it. I don't know why you should stop, or remove your name. I don't even care what the document is called. > And if you don't have time, that's absolutely fine too. I have had periods > where I do not have time to read the mailing list, and missed people asking > me things, and I do dimly recall when my children were young enough to drag > me by the arm (and they're still able to distract me with parenting duties > even now). This is a volunteer organisation, and must always take second > place to actual life. I would caution, though, that everyone else does get to > carry on without you. Even the idea that things couldn't carry on without me would terrify me. It's just painful to watch duplicated efforts, and that's literally the only reason I care. I would have been satisfied if you'd read through the notes and discussions on GC3 and dismissed them all with good reasons. But noted, you didn't, because I evidently didn't do a good enough job in presenting them. I'll try and remedy this part. Regards, Matthew _______________________________________________ Standards mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
