
Show HN: Biboumi – An XMPP-to-IRC gateway - louiz
https://biboumi.louiz.org/
======
louiz
I just released version 5.0.

Among other things, this release includes a new feature that can make it
behave like an IRC bouncer. Coupled with a few modern XMPP features, it makes
IRC mobile friendly: you can mark a channel as persistent, join it from your
mobile XMPP client (like Conversations), and whenever you get disconnected due
to bad connectivity biboumi will stay online, and when you go back online it
will send you all the messages you missed.

~~~
wcummings
This is very cool, does it support working as an IRC->IRC bouncer, as well? Or
would I have to run an instance for mobile, in addition to ZNC for desktop?

~~~
louiz
You could do something like this

    
    
      Conversations -> Biboumi --
                                 \
                      irssi   ->  znc -> IRC
    

But it has a few gotchas (like when znc “force-join” a channel, that can’t be
done with XMPP, so biboumi will send you an invite instead, that’s confusing),
and it quickly gets complicated to manage. You could try that, but you might
encounter a few usage issues.

And no, it doesn’t do an IRC->IRC bouncer, so you can’t replace your znc
entirely if you still want to use a real IRC client on your desktop.

I think the best solution is to have two independent biboumi and znc.

~~~
zokier
Would this sort of thing be too convoluted?

    
    
          Conversations -> Biboumi -> IRC
                           /
        irssi -> bitlbee -´
    

I suppose some fidelity is lost in the irc->xmpp->irc conversion, but for
basic use that might work?

~~~
joecool1029
I've been using mutter -> ZNC (with mutter push module) -> bitlbee for some
years and it works fine here for basic XMPP usage.

EDIT: (I'm on a bunch of IRC servers too so this gives me one app for
everything on the phone)

------
edhelas
We are using Biboumi as our official IRC gateway for movim.eu (at
irc.movim.eu) for a couple of years now :) Never had any trouble with it. It's
a wonderful piece of software that I recommend to everyone!

------
ryanlol
I've heard of lots of people using IRC clients for XMPP, but doing the
opposite just feels strange.

~~~
ge0rg
Using an IRC client for XMPP guarantees a sub-par experience. I've been doing
that for years with bitlbee (how do you join a MUC again?) and later with
irssi-xmpp (whoops, Segmentation fault), but IRC has much fewer features than
XMPP, so it really doesn't make sense.

My favorite XMPP feature is Message Delivery Receipts ([0], the nice little
green checkmarks that you have in modern XMPP clients, similar to WhatsApp),
that just aren't supported in the IRC protocol. Other gotchas are chat state
notifications ([1] "user is typing"), last message correction ([2]) and
multiple client resources.

It does make sense to use an XMPP client for IRC, though, as most of the IRC
features can be easily mapped onto XMPP. I'm using yaxim and poezio to chat
with folks on IRC, via biboumi.

[0]
[https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0184.html](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0184.html)

[1]
[https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0085.html](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0085.html)

[2]
[https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0308.html](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0308.html)

~~~
wcummings
IME read receipts and "typing" updates are widely reviled for making online
chat more awkward. I know heaps of people who go out of their way to disable
receipts and status notifications in their chat apps (iMessage etc). I've even
been criticized for _not_ having them disabled in iMessage.

~~~
ge0rg
I tend to agree for privacy reasons, but message _delivery_ receipts are
really useful, especially when the other party is using a mobile connection.

------
gm-conspiracy
What is a good iOS XMPP client?

~~~
kiliankoe
Unfortunately there doesn't really seem to be a _good_ xmpp client for iOS.
ChatSecure is ok and seems to be as good as it gets.

