this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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RCS isn't as open as SMS, it's just as proprietary as iMessage, Google has just expressed a willingness to let other companies use it. They're playing nice because they're the underdog in the US market. If RCS becomes the new standard, Google will exploit that fact.
Not quite true, RCS (formerly Joyn) was designed by the consortium setting the cellular network standards as replacement for SMS and MMS. It was mainly expected to have the services run at the carrier network - though having it run somewhere else was an option (just like with SMS). Which is what google is doing now, they're running their own servers.
Efforts to develop the protocol started almost two decades ago, and it was supposed to be taken into use about 15 years ago - but the protocol is just horrible, so the main surprise is that it didn't fully die, but google ended up implementing it.
They could've done pretty much anything at that point - implementations for this were non-existent, and nobody really wanted to be the first to implement it, as - like I said - the whole thing is just horrible. It was requested back then when we started work on the Jolla1, but after having a closer look at the specs we laughed, and it was never brought up again.
Could you expand a bit on what makes it horrible?
Not really, it's now been roughly ten years since I was analysing the spec, so it'd be quite a bit of effort for me to dig my old analysis up (if I even still have it). Also, there have been some new revisions of the standard since then (possibly with google involved in the end), so they might have fixed some of the worse bits - though I wouldn't hold my breath.
Seems like you know a log about the topic. Do you think its better to push for RCS to become the new standard, just because it has momentum? Or would you rather we encourage Google, Apple, the carriers, etc., to switch over to something like Matrix or Signal?
Definitely something else. The original motivation (and one of the reasons it never took off) was to have a rich messaging service under control of the operators, just like SMS and MMS today - meaning they can bill you per message, if they want to. Parts of the problems the protocol has also come from the design requirement to keep the operator in control, when it isn't really a requirement for a modern messaging service.
In the current setup with google running their own service that won't happen - but it seems google is cooperating with the operators for that, i.e., as the operators couldn't pull it off themselves they were happy to partner with google when google offered it. I don't know about you, but "a messaging system with the control split between google and the operators" doesn't sound like a very desirable thing to me.
The Signal protocol imo is better. Plus many other messengers already use it, like WhatsApp and FB Mesennger.
Shouldn't the EU enforce an open standard, rather than one controlled by a 'gatekeeper'?
The EU are doing exactly that, but they're doing it the sensible way. Instead of pointing to a particular standard (Signal, RCS, whatever) and saying you must use this, they're forcing Apple, WhatsApp, etc to publish open APIs that allow others to hook into their services. This allows platforms that are distinctive to develop but prevents vendor lock-in. Honestly, I'll be all over WhatsApp and iMessage once I can use an open-source client to hook into them.
Does this mean we can get iMessage support on Android?
Not yet, because as the article mentioned, Apple disputed their position on iMessage being a gatekeeper because “the userbase is really small”, so it’ll be a while before this is investigated and any conclusions are drawn.
They should. Absolutely. I think the ideal would be that the EU require Google to open up RCS to be interoperable with other standards like Matrix and Signal. But even barring that, requiring Apple to support RCS would be a massive improvement.
I just don't want to accidentally give Google the power we're trying to take from Apple. That just puts us back at square one.
It's more open in the sense that the GSMA (not Google) licenses it to pretty much anyone who wants it.
Apple does not license it to anyone and refuses to.
While its still proprietary, the fact that anyone CAN use it is a pretty huge difference than being 100% vendor-locked.