Hans-Christoph SteinerDoes anyone know of any #FreeSoftware implementations of the #RCS encrypted messaging protocol? There is the nine year old
https://github.com/android-rcs/rcsjta I wonder if that is usable?
AlexTECPlayz@eighthave Nope, there's no such app at this time. The only implementations of RCS on Android are through carrier-provided RCS or partnerships with Google to use their Jibe RCS implementation in Google and Samsung Messages.
This isn't particularly easy, RCS requires a backend to route messages, so even IF there was an open-source messaging app that acted only as the RCS client, your RCS messages would still pass through your carrier or Google's Jibe backend servers.
Not to mention that even if a client and server were realistically possible with FOSS tech, then ideally it'd be using RCS 3.0 (RACSCS Version 15.0), released in March this year, which actually adds RCS E2EE using MLS for p2p, 1-to-1 and group messages in the standard.
Koutsie 
@alextecplayz @eighthave very very sad.
keithzg@eighthave Very curious to hear the results, when I checked recently I came to the conclusion that the answer was effectively no: https://phabricator.keithzg.ca/T304
R.L. Dane 
🍵 
Sorry for #NecroReplying,
As far as I can tell, #RCS is utterly and completely dead on arrival as far as any FOSS implementation is concerned.
Even if somebody had the stones to sit down and write an implementation, it probably wouldn't be trusted or allowed in the network with all of the jerky carriers and Google and Samsung and all those horrible people. I don't know. 😅
P.S. I have since heard that Samsung is out of it as well.
@rl_dane thank you for #NecroReplying, this is still worth discussing! Is there some mechanism with #RCS that enforces which implementations are allowed to interoperate? If it is a standard protocol, it seems that #AdversarialInteroperability should work just fine. Google's implementation is just an app, isn't it?
Yeah, this is where my understanding of the protocol is really thin Swiss cheese. XD
From skimming various argumentative and contradictory forums (🤣), I've come away with the impression that a FOSS implementation of RCS wouldn't be trusted by the stakeholders, namely Google, Samsung, Apple, and the carriers.
There isn't even an independent proprietary implementation of RCS on the entire Play store. There are several that mention RCS somewhere in the metadata, but there's no claim of RCS interoperability in the description. There's also one that does claim to have RCS, but it only works with other users of the exact same app, which tells me that they're just doing their own rich messaging implementation and calling it #RCS. :P