Crazy idea #1 :
Since Signal clients and servers are open source, how about we fork the server to make a federated chat network that uses the signal protocol ?
I'm still new to federated architectures, and I only loosely read the Signal spec, so I don't know if this is even possible.
Feel free to explain how this is not possible, or what you think the main obstacles would be.
If you know of any similar projects, I'm obviously interested.
@nels @andreasguest @parleur @Goffi
To sum up all your answers : there are already great federated chat protocols, so let's not make yet another one and spread the users even more. I see two areas of improvement :
1. It would be awesome if we had a consensus over federation protocols to bring more interoperability
2. It should be easier for avergage non-tech-savy users to run their own servers, eg on a RasPi or an old laptop.
Which leads to...
Crazy idea #2 : (by crazy, I mean that I am not actually likely to start such a project on my own)
How about a #linux distro dedicated to self hosting and federated services, such as #Nextcloud, #Mastodon or #Matrix / #XMPP with a focus on average non-tech-savy users.
It should come with packages so that getting your instances up and running is as easy as `apt install [...]` ang going through easy and intuitive configuration wizards with detailed steps for DNS registration, port fwd et al.
@pcouy maybe on kubernetes with helm chart to ease deployment.
But... Why using Signal which is made to process phone items like contacts, and not simply use rocket chat, or Element which is already built for this? We already install it for clients...
@pcouy I don't mean to not use Signal. What I say is that, for your idea, Element or RocketChat are already making the job.
@metal3d Signal is good, and has the advantage that a good part of my contacts already use it.
But I would love to see my contacts make the switch to self hosted federated platforms.
If we want them to make the switch, while avoiding centralization on a few public servers, we better have some really easy way for them to set up their own instances. Something like a tool that pre-configures everything on a RPi image such that it runs completely headless from first boot
