We are happy to announce the release of Salut à Toi v0.5.1! This version focuses on security and code refactorisation to ease the add of new features and maintenance.
We remind you that SàT is a multi-purposes and multi-frontends XMPP client, mainly developed in Python. The more advanced frontends are Primitivus (console) and Libervia (web). Jp (command line) can be used for administrative tasks. Wix (desktop/WxWidgets) will be deprecated and replaced with Bellaciao (desktop/Qt). An Android frontend is also planned.
Security
A new parameter has been added to define a password for the SàT profile, it is stored hashed in the database. Its raw version is used to cipher the other passwords - including the one for the XMPP account - which are encrypted. A scheme on the wiki explains how this all works: encryption.
Libervia now handles HTTPS. The administrator can choose the service(s) to enable: HTTP, HTTPS or both.
You can uses OTR for instant messaging end-to-end encryption. Primitivus console interface uses the Python library potr while Libervia is based on the Javascript implementation otr.js. Thus, your encrypted discussions on Libervia are really private because the encryption is done directly by your browser; you may encounter some slowdowns, especially when starting OTR.
Other additions
You will notice:
- the add of chat rooms bookmarks;
- the display of the composing states in chat rooms;
- a better integration of the ad-hoc commands, e.g. to allow the administration of the server from Primitivus or Libervia;
- the possibility to erase all your blog posts, change your password or delete your account from Libervia;
- contextual menus on the roster contacts and the discussion panels;
- a couple of new stuff concerning the static blog pages.
Refactorisation
We care to redesign the code when some conception issues are found, or if we imagine a new mechanism which would work better. It is especially important for a project like SàT which is multi-interfaces and still in development. For this version we made several refactorisations concerning:
- XMPP service discovery;
- messages sending and reception;
- textual commands management;
- contact list management;
- hierarchical organization of the constants;
- Libervia's source files hierachy;
- Primitivus keyboard shortcuts.
These modifications are not of a big interest for the users, but they ease our life, and maybe those of the people who would like to give us a hand! We see them as required first steps to initiate the development of the mobile phone frontend and the add of new features.
We extended the usage of XMLUI, our internal micro-format for describing user interfaces. We use it to manage frontend's dialogs from the backend. The user actions are now better integrated and we will keep on improving it for the next versions.
To be mentioned
The backend is now launched as a Twisted plugin and starts by default in daemon mode, just as Libervia. The initialisation sequence backend / frontends has been improved; this fixes the issues that could occur when SàT and Libervia were launched from a script within a short time. Moreover, we added a .service file for D-Bus to automatically launch the backend when a frontend needs it.
The default paths for the user files are now compliant to the XDG recommendations: configuration file in ~/.config/sat, database and the rest in ~/.local/share/sat. Any previously existing default configuration file will be retrieved and eventually updated.
If the XMPP server address and port are left empty in the connection parameters, the actual values can be retrieved from a DNS SRV record - if one is set for the "domain" part of your JID.
There's a new log system, fully customisable and managing the colors, formatting, filtering and outputs (files, memory...).
Administrative aspects
We submitted the file for the creation of the association "Salut à Toi"... which has been accepted without any trouble, positively surprising us. Our working mode is indeed a bit special for a French "1901-law" association: a collegial board with no president, secretary nor treasurer but two co-administrators. We remind you that there is behind this project a desire to fully involve ourselves, and this is not compatible with the pursue of another professional activity. This means, for the developers, the necessity to find a funding source. We will start with testing / adapting our idea of a good funding model for SàT, of course meeting the ethical and moral commitments that are defined by our social contract.
The association memberships are our favorite source of income! We defined in the internal rules several amounts for the annual subscription, between 0 and 100 euros and every one is free to choose. There's no typo! For the persons who would like to support us without being able or willing to contribute financially, that's possible - because moral support is important too. So there's no reason not to join ;-)
We are unfortunately not ready yet to offer you the possibility to make it online. We actually plan to open a bank account for the association at the end of this month, then we will prepare the online form to manage the subscriptions.
Meetings
We attended this year the "Free Software Days" (aka JDLL in French) in Lyon, "Pas Sage en Seine" in Paris and the "Libre Software Meeting" (aka RMLL) in Montpellier - see the links to watch the recorded conferences (in French). We met or saw again some nice people at the stands and during the speeches Goffi made. Many thanks to the organizers of these events, and to Reflets.info which wrote an article about SàT following the last version's release, allowing a larger public to get to know about the project.
We also participated last week to the "XMPP Summit" and its hackaton in Berlin. We met there some XMPP developers, including two with whom we have regular contact, such as Edhelas from Movim. We presented together our issues with the protocol and will suggest new XEPs to standardize some practices (especially regarding Publish-Subscribe and blogging), and push their implementations.
Saturday, September the 27th between 2pm and 5:30pm, Goffi will participate to a radio program from "Ici et maintenant", recorded in Paris and about self-hosting. There will be many guests including two from the Jappix project.
We would like to organize some gatherings via the association, at least once per year as a general assembly and maybe more often. The date and the location haven't been discussed yet.
Please also notice the recent creation of a "users" mailing list for SàT, it completes the chat room and the "dev" mailing list.
And then?
We would like to migrate our own blogs to SàT. The version 0.6 will focus on blogging (in SàT, it is based on a fine access permission system, so you only write to the people you want), pictures storage and tags implementation. These are essentials features and maybe the last important works before the publication of the first public release, which has been a bit delayed and should be stamped 0.7 or 0.8.