Hello!

I’m hrxi, a mathematics student from Germany. I got accepted into Google Summer of Code with the XMPP software foundation as the mentoring organisation. In the next three months, I’m going to work on Dino, a modern XMPP client for the desktop.

The goal of this summer of code project is to implement peer-to-peer file transfers in Dino, in addition to the HTTP file transfers that are already available in the client. Peer-to-peer file transfers will allow faster and larger file downloads if both clients are online at the same time.

XMPP is a messaging protocol. For the user, it tackles a similar problem as other messengers, such as Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Its inner workings are quite different though: It is as an open standard, so anyone can write client and server implementations. Unlike the above messengers, it is also decentralized in a way that allows anyone to run their own XMPP server, and more importantly still allows you communicate with the rest of the XMPP world – quite similar to how email works.

Modern XMPP usage consists of many XMPP Extension Protocols (XEPs). The basis for the underlying connection between clients will be the Jingle protocol (XEP-0166). This protocol is also the basis for audio/video calls in XMPP, so implemting it will allow other people to build support for these on top of that work. The peer-to-peer file transfer will follow the Jingle File Transfer protocol (XEP-0234).