Index
Reclaim your chat
PSYC is a modern protocol for a messaging infrastructure for text-based conferencing (but also enabling transparent binary data). It has learned from protocols such as IRC and XMPP and found an approach that can indeed scale globally, by generalizing the multicast concept beyond chatrooms to presence awareness, news- and friendcasting and leers at decentralized privacy-driven social networking (using trust metrics), telephony and audio/video conferencing. Chatrooms are programmable, which enables for applications like event notification.
Contents |
PSYC is not in competition with IRC and Jabber. As psyced implements both, they are a very strong presence in the PSYC experience. PSYC has spent more time on the design of a robust scaling interserver protocol, whereas the other two protocols treat it like a necessary evil. We think all three protocols make a great team and unity if IRC and Jabber stay strong on the client side while PSYC is in charge of interserver traffic. Yet, we love to see powerful native PSYC clients, too...
Getting Started
The Introduction to PSYC gives you an overview.
But you may want to just try using PSYC. Help yourself to a good IRC or Jabber client software, and connect to a public server like psyced.org (IRC port 6667). See the help pages and manuals to get you started. Because PSYC will behave differently from your typical IRC or Jabber server, you do need a little information there.
Alternatively you can have a peek into PSYC by means of one of the webchats. If you're familiar with telnet, that isn't so bad either. If you are really ready for pain, try some native PSYC clients. None of them work out of the box, since the PSYC protocol for clients keeps changing. Take a look at the software list below for a choice of experimental native clients.
Once you're seeing PSYC from a user's point of view and read about the powerful features of our backbone server technology, psyced, you may want to try running your own server node.
Software
- Screen snapshots - Many ways to look at PSYC.
- psyced - PSYC-enhanced multicasting chat and multi-protocol messaging daemon.
- perlpsyc - Generic PSYC library for perl, also contains:
- cvs2psyc - report changes to a CVS tree into a developer chatroom
- dpa2psyc - gateway an email newsfeed into a PSYC subscription room
- psycfilemonitor - report alterations to the file system in realtime
- psycion - amazing console psyc client!
- psycmp3 - console mp3 player with PSYC notification and remote control
- syslog2psyc - daemon that receives events from syslog and forwards to psyc
- Dyskinesia - An open-source PSYC client written in C++. It can be compiled in GNU/Linux or MS Windows.
- PsycZilla (beta) - XUL/javascript client & Social Network browser
- PSYC realtime notification from PHP apps:
- wikinotify - psycnotify.php extension for MediaWiki - how to make it report changes to a chatroom. nice example on how utterly easy it can be to integrate something into PSYC.
- psycnotify.module for the Drupal CMS
- PSYC syndication for phpbb.
- psycmail- little C application which parses a mail header as provided by a .forward or .procmailrc, then creates a realtime notification of incoming email. also available as patch to psycify procmail natively.
- pikepsyc is a PSYC framework in pike.
- pypsyc - python library with experimental clients.
- You can even look into various orphaned projects, most notably
- Software projects you could be looking into..
Tasks
- Submit a Bug Report or put your vision of PSYC into the Wishlist.
- Find a Public Server or make one, then find public places to meet people or interests.
- Have a look at the user manual on the Help page to learn about the many commands a psyced provides to you.
- Subscribe Newsfeeds or set them up.
- How to Create Places. Places, Groups, you can call them Chatrooms or maybe even Channels, although that term has a more specific meaning in PSYC. A notable progressive dance rock artist from France suggested we should call them Cubes, as in the movie. Har! Har! Har!
- Encryption - formats, implementations, thoughts
- Get yourself realtime notification of e-mail reception: psycmail.
- Set up an SMTP E-Mail to PSYC gateway and filter SPAM.
- Set up an IRCgate to interface an IRC network with PSYC and Jabber.
- Get an account to the wiki.
Awards
In 2001, long before being finished, PSYC was indirectly conferred the German Grimme Online Award twice. First as the largest, most innovative building block of politik-digital, secondly also for implementing a high scalability webchat interview with the rock band R.E.M. as a part of MTVs Internet activities. Both were implemented by symlynX using PSYC technology prototypes. Check the 2001 Preisträger and see for yourself!
Documentation
First read all pages. Then check out the specification in the making. Finally, a step by step guide on how to write a client.
News
- The PSYC 1.0 release initiative is recruiting volunteers.
- Future PSYC strategy has been discussed and development teams are being formed.
- echox held a lecture on the State of PSYC in german language at
MetaRheinMain Chaosdays, September 5th, 2009.
Incompatibilities
When you upgrade your psyced take care of the following changes:
- We are now using git instead of CVS for distribution and update.
- Newly generated psyced scripts will support -u, -d and -m for update, diff and merge functionality.
- Download a new snapshot of psyced to have an initial clone of the git repository.
psyced News
- Bugfixes in presence and subscription functions of Jabber clients. Still not completely bug-free.
- Allow multiple PSYC clients simultaneously linked to your account.
In beta
The following psyced features are new and currently being tested on beta:
- New microblogging functions in web profiles with comment function and cross-publishing to Twitter and StatusNet.
- Persistent context slaves which detect when member lists or friendships get out of synch.
- Experiments in SOCKS and RTMP.
Current Issues
Technical Issues
- Clients - Questions and Issues when implementing a PSYC Client.
- psyced Issues (usually in CHANGESTODO, and for now it should stay that way)
- Profiles - Stuff our home server is allowed to know about us.
- Method Naming - the big rename, finalizing the method names for PSYC 1.0
- Friendivity and social networks in PSYC.
- Mobile access using PSYC with mobile phones.
Abstract and Meta Issues
- Do we have to rewrite psyced?
- Documentation TODOs - translations and more, please help.
- Release Announcement - how to tell the world about psyced/1.0.
- PSYC Mailing Lists - postings and stuff.
- Website Design - now we have three, badly organized and in large parts ugly.
- Development Tools - let's subvert cvs and wiki a bit.
Related Work
- http://internet.relay.pages.de/research.html
- Icecap also known as Irssi2 - protocol idea from Mr. Irssi.
- Cspace uses a DHT-based addressing scheme.
- Similar to CAKE and others listed on the SMTP page, but those don't chat.
- FuzWare documents the need for a protocol with a vision, rather than providing one.
Testimonials
- psyc://ketmar.no-ip.org/~ketmar says
- I actually installed psyced as a small and lean Jabber server, but then found out that native PSYC is much more fun. %-)
- psyc://psyced.org/~antagonist says
- I found you through Wikipedia. I like psyced.org because it has a lot of cool features and it's online 24/7... I didn't test them all, but I really like the "PsycZilla" client! It looks cool. And I like that PSYC and psyced are open source and the nice users on PSYC! :)
- psyc://psyc.us/~20after4 says
- I initially found psyced because I was looking for a jabber server and psyced was the first one that I was able to install successfully. Once I started learning about psyc I was very attracted to the psyc community. I continue to participate in this community because of the friendly and stimulating people who I have met and continue to meet in psyc://psyced.org/@welcome.
- pEL says
- Creo que este sistema es el futuro del chat y de la mensajeria. Yo lo que he estado probando y mirando me parece un software tremendamente potente.
- psyc://ve.symlynx.com/~kuchn bröselt
- wow. allein durch das benutzen eines hierarchischen methodenwörterbuchs like psyc does spart man mindestens 80% code und komplexität. überhaupt kann man das psyc prinzip getrost für jeglichen datenaustausch, auch den innerhalb von prozessen (events z.B.), benutzen, und sich dann sicher sein, den modularsten und offensten weg gegangen zu sein. jetzt bräucht man nurnoch eine globale namenshierarchie für die verschiedensten zwecke (pipe your packets, baby). und zum schluss noch einen psyc implementierenden kernel. :)
- psyc://foxybanana.com/~shoraneth says
- oh neat :) I need to learn german one of these days. I was talking about psyc and psyced on IRC yesterday, and I still think it went over people's heads. I'm certain I'm not an expert on it, but, it's interesting. It just surprises me how stubborn people can be when it comes to trying new things. well, I think I'm going to try and use psyc for a few little things I have, simply because it's easier than Jabber and makes more sense than IRC.
- Theobald writes
- I'm a member of the old 'Stern Chat'. That one I liked very much. But there are some years gone now. Then I followed your chat designs and was very pleased, though many people were not any more online, or present. ok. Many had given up chatting - but that's chat. So, what to say ... I am not the one having time to do work on system network - nor do I have the knowledge. But I do like your effort and work. That's why I ask you to keep me informed, please. Keep on your idea ... it's really worth it.
- Terminar sagt
- ich hatte ja erzählt daß ich für die webchat-lösung ein system suche daß man gut umbiegen kann und daß viel funktionalität anbietet. psyc ist da eigentlich die plattform. ich würde dafür auch was anderes nehmen, aber ich hab noch nichts sinnvolles gefunden (was aber nichts daran ändert daß ich psyc allgemein absolut geil finde und auch selbst nutzen werde)
- Viaken says
- My opinion? Basically it's that this is pretty interesting and I could see it taking off. I'm mainly curious about what you envision this progressing to. Obviously, a messaging program to beat all messaging programs. ;) But...what are the next steps? Finish 1.0?
- <lynX> hard to tell.. we are instinct-driven. all attempts to make roadmaps have resulted in us feeling pressured by a roadmap
- <Viaken> lol
- Kol_Panic
- This is a community that is getting a lot of good mileage out of pre-release software. If it works as well as it does now then how good will the release candidates be?
Captured Lines
cubex sagt: oh my god! this thing does everything cubex sagt: seriously, yes cubex sagt: now i'm expecting it to grind my beans and make me coffee teto chees: Wow! teto chees: Germany wins again. teto gives this thing one and a half ears up. uls says: well done. it looks nice, a good playground :-) keep up :-) ketmar says: it's funny that psyced, which supports telnet, irc, xmpp (and psyc too %-) is faster and has smaller memory footprint than dedicated xmpp servers, which speak only xmpp %-) indigo6 says: psyced is truly genius ketmar says: and it even works... sometimes %-) indigo6 says: it works well -- but it is a work in progress, with huge amount of possibilty... it really could become the universal chat protocol ketmar says: it SHOULD %-) tetsuo asks: Can you change /quote to /quoth the raven ? tetsuo asks: And then the screen goes dark and you see "Welcome, Edgar" in blood dripping letters?
Mehr Kommentare in deutsch.
Opinions
- If you're going to do a standard for Instant Messaging (even 1-1 messaging), ignoring the requirements imposed by the possibility of group communication would likely lead you to a protocol that doesn't satisfy anyone's actual requirements.
- Larry Masinter, Parc Xerox, co-author of HTTP/1.1, Mon, 18 Oct 1999 16:41:44 PDT on the IETF working group IMPP mailing list (<004b01bf19c2$56085640$15d0000d@copper.parc.xerox.com>). His comment was ignored (and various people who agreed with him), and so now the IMPP and subsequently XMPP (Jabber) specifications enforce a standard which fans out presence to a group of peers without any distribution strategy for it. XMPP now faces a serious scalability issue because of that, but don't worry - we're working on the remedy.
More
- Popularity of this site, see Special:Statistics.
- For a list of all pages, see Special:Allpages.
- We have made a selection of wiki pages categorized by degree of usability:
- Check out Category:Solid for everything that's cooking today.
- Go to Category:Vapor to steal our best ideas before we code them.
- Look at Category:Liquid for everything inbetween.
... and we are always open for suggestions! after all, /dev/null is of infinite size... %-)
Tribute To Our Sponsors
is heavily sponsoring open-source development of PSYC.
... but the greatest sponsorship of PSYC is still the work its developers put into it....!!
see all the details on about:People.
Stay in touch
Announcement newsletters are currently a bit quiet, we don't want to send out spammy emails for little news, so for the little news there is a newscast channel you can /subscribe:
