[Telepathy] future of Telepathy?

[Martin Klapetek]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Daniel Pocock <daniel at pocock.pro> wrote:

>
>
> On 26/04/16 02:59, Martin Klapetek wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 12:52 PM, Dominik George <nik at naturalnet.de
> > <mailto:nik at naturalnet.de>> wrote:
> >
> >     Hi,
> >
> >     >The technical details are largely irrelevant. What matters is that,
> >     >the way things stand today, a GNOME user can't use Whatsapp with
> >     >Telepathy, and nobody is doing the work to change that.
> >
> >     Which is a good thing.
> >
> >     Make people want to use free software and services, rather than
> >     spoiling free software with crap.
> >
> >
> > It's not a good thing.
> >
> > Free software and services unfortunately are not in a position
> > to dictate trends to the world, as sad as it may be.
> >
> > If significant portion of people are using WhatsApp or WhatEver,
> > not supporting it only means being obliterated into irrelevance
> > because nobody is going to use something, network or client, where
> > they will be all alone, no matter how much better it may really be.
> > And there is no way you could convince even 10% of your friends
> > to switch to any current free software and service (diaspora, anyone?).
> >
> > That's just a reality.
>
> The RTC Quick Start Guide[1] makes it easier than ever for sysadmins to
> run XMPP and SIP servers that are reliable and support proper NAT
> traversal.
>
> Debian already has these services running for developers, some other
> communities are going down the same path.
>
> There are problems but they are far from impossible to solve.
>
> When it comes to dealing with your non-technical friends, well, if they
> really respect you as an IT professional and you show them a quality
> XMPP client like Conversations working well they will use it.  If you
> tell them you don't use WhatsApp or Facebook, they may be a bit annoyed,
> but if they are really your friends they will get over it.
>

I think you're kinda missing a point here. My friends may very well
get over me not being on their network, but why would I, as an ordinary
user, want to switch to something where I won't have my friends? What
would be the point of using a network and/or a client where I would be alone
when the _main_ point of a social/IM network is to connect people?

For that matter, I actually did join Diaspora and convinced the grand
total of 2 friends to join. They stuck around for about 4 days, then never
logged in again "because nobody else would join and so it was boring".

For that matter, I actually do use XMPP and I have one single friend-friend
online on that network.

Now just why would ordinary users want to deprive themselves of
all their 350 facebook friends and go sit in the corner by themselves,
no matter how much better we tell them that corner chair is?

WIth Telepathy, you can allow people to sit on a better chair _and_
still remain in the friends circle. And that's, imho, what the project
needs; support what people want and require. Otherwise it's not
too relevant. Not for ordinary users anyway, who don't live in our
world of ideals.

Speaking of which, as a KDE Telepathy maintainer, I do see quite a decline
in our userbase. One of the reasons I get from users is "does not support
$protocol", where $protocol is often Skype, WhatsApp or Facebook. And
no, it really doesn't matter to them that they can have calls via XMPP, they
want their Skype contacts cause Skype is The Thing...

Cheers

-- 
Martin Klapetek | KDE Developer
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