Is there any FOSS alternative messenger that handles SMS and RCS? Supposedly RCS is an open standard, but I am not aware of any FOSS messenger that has it. I’d like to move away from google messenger, but there doesn’t look like there is an option just yet.
No such thing.
Google has not, and probably never will, make it accessible to outside developers.
Since they decided to play host for rcs, they essentially own it now.
Yup. It’s an open standard, but that doesn’t mean they will let your client connect.
Even it wasn’t Google, you can’t self-host RCS backend. So it would have been carrier’s servers or someone else’s. Given that end-to-end encryption is not a part of the standard yet (and it won’t be mandated anyway), having an open source client would offer no privacy benefits.
I went through this same process recently. Since Apple was finally implementing RCS, I was looking forward to my iPhone friends complaining less, but unfortunately it seems like Google pretty much has an iron grip on RCS as even with Samsung Messaging or Beeper / Sunbird, I’m pretty sure you need a Google Account
as a beeper user, i can confirm that the rcs feature of google messages does not work w/o google play services
If only.
honestly the lack of open source software for volte and RCS is frustrating and makes it almost impossible to run mainline Linux on a phone
/usr/bin/rcs
To be honest RCS doesn’t bring anything useful, SMS are helpful because they don’t rely on wifi network, RCS will prevent you for receiving urgent message. Everything RCS does, other messaging apps like Signal do better
The main advantage is that not everyone has to have the same app (in theory). Users looking to replace Messages (Google), certainly need something that at minimum handles SMS/MMS - like Quik or Fossify Messages
Well, with RCS everyone already has a baked in app that supports the protocol, but still doesn’t do anything better other the alternatives (I mean other apps, not sms).
I’m slowly moving all my friends and family over to Signal
My only issue with Signal is that it does not seem to (or I cannot get it to) work over wifi in the absence of a cell signal.
Not sure what is going on with your setup, but Signal should work with any internet connection.
It should, it’s not using signal, just internet access
RCS is essentially a better form of mms
true for images, problem is for text messages
To be fair, I don’t remember the last time I had mobile signal without any sort of internet. The coverage pretty much overlaps these days.
It’s not about coverage but about money. SMS is in my country (nl) free, for data you havd to pay. Bedides that SMS works on every phone from simple gdm to smartphone
I have multiple friends that don’t enable their signal except for emergency
I agree, I hope it just dies off like most of googles projects and leaves the space for better alternatives.
Like the other one I don’t know if that exist.
Sad and probably true …
If it’s possible, I think that Quik want to go in this direction. He doesn’t talk about RCS but : https://github.com/octoshrimpy/quik/commit/9c59374fad2d24cbc8b768a476200330139e3c28
Voilà !! 😊
This is the closest I’ve been able to find - JMP which is used in Cheogram, a FOSS XMPP app, was working on it in May but I messaged them about it recently and there hasn’t been much development on it unfortunately. https://blog.jmp.chat/b/may-newsletter-2024
They allow you to have VOIP numbers and even a data only SIM with no KYC and pay in crypto if you want so it’s a pretty cool project overall. Maybe if more people message them about RCS it will become a higher priority.
Is something like jmp.chat sort of close?
