Re: Reinstating XHTML-IM (XEP-0071)

Goffi <[email protected]> Sun, 15 Mar 2026 22:40:33 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.network.jabber.standards-jig
Message-ID	<2291459.irdbgypaU6@tazar3>
Hi Schimon and others,

I'm very much against bringing back XHTML-IM, even if I my client still has an 
implementation.

For blogging, we are not using that, we are using full XHTML that we sanitize. 
It doesn't make sense to have a subset, we have gateways to other protocols, 
we convert ATOM/RSS feeds, so we need to support the whole thing.

I was initially in favor of keeping XHTML-IM when it has been deprecated, but 
now I find Markup (XEP-0394) to be a far better solution thanks to its clean 
separation between content and formatting data. It's extensible, and we can 
easily add anything missing.

On the other hand, XHTML-IM is a whole new payload in addition of the plain 
text <body>, that means that clients may show totally different content.

People will implement various flavour with more or less element supported (I'm 
pretty sure that in practice the `-IM` part will be ignored and people will 
just implement whatever they need at some point. While this can also be the 
case with XEP-0394, we can add other features as extension, and announce 
support of them explicitly.

Anyway, this subject has always been very touchy in the XMPP community, and I 
expect lengthy debates again. I'm not sure if I have the time and energy to 
follow that.

On a "communication" point of view, I'm not sure if it's a great idea to be so 
indecisive on this topic, we have one solution (XHTML-IM), no it's not good, 
let's add 2 others one (styling and markup), no actually the XHTML-IM was not 
so bad. Result: 3 extensions (I actually consider that styling and markup are 
complementary and not really competing).

So good luck for people going into those discussion, I think that I'll follow 
from a distance (except if this ends up in a council vote, in which case I'll 
have to know various arguments, but I'm not looking forward for that to be 
honest).

Best,
Goffi


Le dimanche 15 mars 2026, 02:27:37 heure normale d’Europe centrale Schimon 
Jehudah via Standards a écrit :
> Greetings.
> 
> I am not an XSF member, yet I am interested to reinstate XHTML-IM.
> 
> I have useful ideas that would be possible with XHTML-IM.
> 
> Nevertheless, even without new ideas, I deem that XEP-0071 should be
> reinstated with added security concerns;
> 
> Email software also handle (X)HTML, and so many other software, while
> implementing security measures; and
> 
> Therefore, I deem that, XEP-0071 should be reinstated.
> 
> Kind reagrds,
> Schimon
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