RFI: Guix XMPP service.

[MSavoritias]

Hello o/


I would like to do a formal proposal to make an official Guix XMPP instance.


Background:

I asked a couple of days ago if it would be possible to have an XMPP 
room listed on the Guix site next to the IRC. I also asked in IRC and 
shared it on ActivityPub.

The response was very enthusiastic, thank you everyone for joining and 
spreading the message. ^^

It was said though that listing it on the website would make it 
official, plus some other concerns around log retention. Hence this 
proposal here. :)

For those that do not know XMPP is a protocol for many things, one of 
them being messaging. It has been active for more than 20 years now and 
is still being developed.


Who am I:

I have been around Guix for a bit in IRC and the email lists. I also do 
some small advocacy for Guix in ActivityPub federation (Mastodon, 
Peertube, etc.).

I am maintaining the infrastructure for https://joinjabber.org/ which is 
moving to Guix currently -> https://codeberg.org/joinjabber/Infra :) and 
I am a member of XSF.

I also do a lot of advocacy for xmpp in activitypub and handle the 
activitypub presence of joinjabber. -> @joinjabber@indieweb.social


What is being proposed:

I propose to host an xmpp instance with a room/or some rooms under the 
guix domain. Something like xmpp.guix.gnu.org

This can be done in one of two ways:

1. There is a service here -> https://cheogram.com/freedomware-muc/ 
hosted by https://soprani.ca/

 We can just setup our DNS to point to the service and sopranica will 
take care of the xmpp server.

I have talked with them and they do have unlimited retention of past 
messages plus they can also setup a log viewing thing just like IRC has.

Its a sustainable free software business and the hosting will be free. :)

2. We can self host our own prosody instance. It has minimal 
maintenance, and its very lightweight.

I can maintain the instance as it is done for joinjabber and we already 
have a guix service for prosody.


Why / What does Guix get from this:

Right now guix has email lists and IRC. What XMPP can give on top of 
that is:

1. XMPP is more approachable for people used to Matrix or Discord (for 
multiple reasons). While still being very lightweight and free software.

2. It is federated and easily self hosted. Which makes Guix more 
independent in case something like Freenode ever happens to Libera chat 
or in case people want to have their own server to connect to the guix 
rooms.


Personally I am in favor of option 1. We can host it in the cheogram 
service to test things out and if we need to we can self host it later. 
Since It will point to the same domain it shouldn't be a problem.

All we would need to do is change where our DNS points to and that's it.


MSavoritias