XMPP Support in Messaging-App

[Kai Mast]

Hi All,

sorry if this is the wrong list for this topic. It concerns both the
desktop and the phone.

What currently bugs me most about Ubuntu Touch and the new apps is that
there is currently no support for instant messaging. Yeah, there is the
messaging-app but it only supports SMS and lets face it: this isn't the
90ties anymore.

So I really hope that some form of IM support can land in the
messaging-app. Personally I only care about XMPP, but as the app already
uses telepathy it should be easy to add any other protocol to as soon as
one of them has landed. Also we could add support for the Facebook XMPP
server like on current Empathy. This would mean an easy transition to
the OS for most users and could make up for the fact that Ubuntu touch
doesn't support WhatsApp.
I have the fear that Ubuntu will go down the road of Android and have an
App for every service, which would be horrible (and it is not even
possible with the current restrictions afaik). If we have a nice
multi-protocol messenger in the style of Google Hangouts or WhatsApp
that would be really a killer feature. I remember that Maemo even had a
telepathy plugin for Skype that worked pretty well.

To come to the point: I would really like to implement this! But I
cannot do it by myself. This needs a lot of design work in the
messaging-app and I also need people to give me some help on where to
start. And even then, this is a LOT of work. So, I would hope that some
people will read this and maybe think that they could join me in this task.
Additionally, I would like to see support from the Ubuntu Community that
this feature is actually wanted. Maybe somebody at Canonical is already
working on this?

Thanks!
Kai

PS: I create a Wiki page for it a long time ago
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity8/JabberIntegration