Conversations: A Mission Statement
Conversations is a messenger for the next decade. Based on already established internet standards that have been around for over ten years Conversations isn’t trying to replace current commercial messengers. It will simply outlive them. Commercial, closed source products are coming and going. 15 years ago we had ICQ which was replaced by Skype. MySpace was replaced by Facebook. WhatsApp and Hangouts will disappear soon. Internet standards however stick around. People are still using IRC and e-mail even though these protocols have been around for decades. Utilizing proven standards doesn’t mean one can not evolve. GMail has revolutionized the way we look at e-mail. Firefox and Chrome have changed the way we use the Web. Conversations will change the way we look at instant messaging. Being less obtrusive than a telephone call, instant messaging has always played an important role in modern society. Conversations will show that instant messaging can be fast, reliable and private. Conversations will not force its security and privacy aspects upon the user. For those willing to use encryption Conversations will make it as uncomplicated as possible. However Conversations is aware that end-to-end encryption by the very principle isn’t trivial. Instead of trying the impossible and making encryption easier than comparing a fingerprint Conversations will try to educate the willing user and explain the necessary steps and the reasons behind them. Those unwilling to learn about encryption will still be protected by the design principles of Conversations. Conversations will simply not share or generate certain information for example by encouraging the use of federated servers. Conversations will always utilize the best available standards for encryption and media encoding instead of reinventing the wheel. However it isn’t afraid to break with behavior patterns that have been proven ineffective.