SAMA – open-source Chat server

[Tepix]

In March 2023, they wrote:

> … provide an alternative solution to the wide spread XMPP messaging protocol (and to be honest — the only wide spread ‘standard’ these days).

Did they miss Matrix for some reason? The spec is at https://spec.matrix.org/latest/

[jfdjkfdhjds]

matrix is irc3 (guess 4 now). different tradeoffs.

[vaylian]

According to the github readme, there is a Discord community group. Why don't they run their own community? According to the list of features, Sama should be a good alternative to Discord (except voice chats).

[jay-barronville]

> Why don't they run their own community?

Because it raises the bar for community participation. Running their own community sounds ideal, but that assumes someone interested in testing the software out and participating in their community would be willing to create a new account on their platform first. I probably wouldn’t create an account just to participate, whereas I already have a Discord account and joining their Discord community doesn’t require too much from me. Plus, nothing stops them from still working to build a community on their platform anyway.

[Dalewyn]

Eating their own dog food, as the saying goes.

[taf2]

Why do statements like this “ Built with modern technologies” always rub me the wrong way… is it because tomorrow it won’t be modern?

[bityard]

Don't forget "Blazingly Fast!" on every other startup marketing page. (It's so cliche at this point it hurts to read.)

[01HNNWZ0MV43FF]

It rubs me the wrong way because it means staying on a smaller treadmill.

Linux supports my 9-year-old PC just fine. But once you move outside "last two stable versions of Chrome or Firefox" some websites quit working. Since I only have 16GB of RAM, some hungry apps can't run at the same time.

We've all heard it before, I don't need to say it again. "Modern" means "Pay more to run faster on a shorter treadmill, or we'll shame you"

[benreesman]

“Built with modern technology” is either a very good sign or a very bad one.

If it means “we’ve been doing this a long time, we’re up to date, and we had no compatibility burden”, that’s probably coming out really nice.

If it means “tryhard at buzzword bingo”, you know how that’s going. Claude is fucking retarded and it can do that.

[latexr]

It’s probably because you understand that “modern technologies” often means “buzzword-laden blobs of unproven hype”. They’re the words typically chosen by software developers driven by trends who think new is always better and can’t concentrate on any project for long enough to see them through. The type of developer who pursues every shiny thing and sells their souls to VCs.

Meanwhile, serious developers with a proven track record who ship and care about stability and longevity understand that boring technology is best.

https://boringtechnology.club

[sinkasapa]

Toasters have been around for a long time. So has Javascript. I suppose that I can buy a modern toaster or an antique toaster. Still, they both seem unremarkably like toasters to me. Likewise, I can run an old Javascript program or a new one. It feels like being modern isn't really all that special. I wonder if no matter how old the tradition of writing software becomes, we'll always want to associate it with modernness. Will certain software writing ever become artisanal?

[hexo]

Yea, and then you look at sources and see javascript. Thanks, I'll skip

[dgrove]

Looks like the XMPP adapter hasn't been open sourced so it can't be built

https://github.com/SAMA-Communications/sama-server/tree/main... https://github.com/SAMA-Communications/xmpp-adapter

Also I don't see anything about E2EE support

[khomenkoigor]

there are open PRs in both server and client, that's gonna be first release around the corner I guess

[khomenkoigor]

New SAMA landing https://samacloud.io

[ilrwbwrkhv]

So this is a real open source product where you can see clearly that it is an open source GitHub project and how to host it etc.

Right now, for example there is another company called Nango calling themselves open source and yet for the life of me I cannot see how to self host.

This is such a disgrace to the open source community and really goes against the hacker ethos.

I really wish YC stops funding those types of companies.

[khomenkoigor]

There is also a roadmap doc https://github.com/SAMA-Communications/sama-server/blob/main...

[benterix]

Seems interesting! Anyone has any practical experience on how it compares to Zulip?

[diggan]

It doesn't seem comparable to Zulip at all. The idea behind Zulip is all around threads ("topics" in Zulip vernacular), channels just happen to be a way to group the threads.

SAMA seems more alike to Slack, where channels is the main grouping, and threads just happen to be a thing you can create in channels.

[dsr_]

If there's any attempt at encrypted communications here, it's not obvious to me. Can someone point it out?

[khomenkoigor]

there are open PRs in both server and client, that's gonna be first release around the corner I guess

[xyst]

What’s wrong with matrix?

[khomenkoigor]

nothing wrong, just a different vision I guess

[RadiozRadioz]

We seem to put a large amount of effort into systems to replace XMPP, I wonder if we could instead put that effort into improving XMPP and its surrounding ecosystem.

If IRC were the only option, its inflexibility would warrant a new protocol, but XMPP is in such a good position with how malleable and deliberately extensible it is. Common gripes all have XEPs, hard stuff like E2EE and Jingle have a huge headstart over greenfield projects, we've got standard compatibility featuresets of XEPs to help with fragmentation, there's a well-founded independent governance structure for the project. It just needs investment and focus to push all this stuff over the edge and get implemented/adopted.

It's hard work. It's harder than starting fresh. But a better XMPP is more valuable than the 20th custom chat app re-implementing the same features as the other 19.

I'm not knocking this project in particular, this is a more general comment about the IM ecosystem, spurred by their blog post mentioning XMPP.

[insane_dreamer]

IRC still works great, btw

Update: downvotes, really? what's wrong with IRC?

[psychoslave]

Of course it still work https://xkcd.com/1782/

[hiatus]

This should probably be a "Show HN" if the OP is Igor Khomenko (based on the name I think so).

[0x1ch]

Who is that?

[khomenkoigor]

what's wrong with react?