The IgniteRealtime community is happy to announce a new release of its open source, real-time communications server server Openfire! Version 5.0.3 brings a number of stability improvements and bug fixes. Notably, a number of improvements were made to Multi-User Chatroom (MUC). Please refer to the full changelog for more details.

You can obtain the new version of Openfire for your platform from its download page. The checksums for the binaries are:

a08493cb19bef6dd2b51ebe88d4ffd121553e2e4473ddbecf94f5ff350e367aa  openfire-5.0.3-1.noarch.rpm
3dd1e9de84d6b177f3b890bea7d6cd88359698bd82c2e656d4b937a8ef7af96e  openfire_5.0.3_all.deb
b3674baa3ab53a1f61db8846c3cdd16ce211917c4df3cee2d4a46fbba265ea76  openfire_5_0_3.dmg
cfabc92ab9e473e71f42ec40533a5d4ae7a9c1dc5ebd060784ce434ae1ba6c12  openfire_5_0_3.exe
fb13bd4e0aff7bd6cc16d78e6f2c35d8b59a95e4f4f886d353265306f151ec45  openfire_5_0_3.tar.gz
dcad510a8a7fda677b07281d08ebb29017555944eeb41c98fb4f38c743a341c4  openfire_5_0_3_x64.exe
0ee9a0837e75b785a40653f78b94a900431067f8a9d2bac5104d2971c46a9779  openfire_5_0_3.zip

For those of you that enjoy metrics, here’s an accounting of 5.0.2 release artifact downloads.

We’d love to hear from you! Please join our community forum or group chat and let us know what you think!

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Helping Dutch Healthcare Speak the Same Language with XMPP

The XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) has put out a call to action: it’s time for the community to help make secure, interoperable chat a reality - especially in healthcare. Here at Ignite Realtime, we’re excited to support this effort. Our projects, such as Openfire and Smack, provide powerful building blocks to explore what’s possible for Dutch healthcare communication.

Building Blocks for Dutch Healthcare Messaging

Many of the features mentioned in the XSF’s call to action (such as attachments, group chat, and read receipts) are already available in our projects, providing a strong foundation for exploring messaging workflows. Openfire offers a scalable XMPP server with a flexible plugin system, while Smack, a modular Java library for building clients on Android, desktop, or other platforms, makes it possible to experiment with custom client-side solutions. Together, these tools allow developers and organizations to prototype, test, and explore how messaging could work in Dutch healthcare contexts.

How Our Community Can Contribute

Even though the Dutch healthcare chat standard is still being finalized, there are ways to explore and prepare for it using projects such as Openfire and Smack:

1. Develop Proof-of-Concepts (PoCs): It’s possible to build early prototypes of messaging solutions to explore how the new standard might work in practice. Many core specifications are already implemented in our products, so prototypes can focus on workflow and interoperability rather than reinventing basic features.
2. Experiment with Custom Functionality: The modular architectures of projects like Openfire and Smack make it possible to create custom plugins, extensions, or client features to test new communication ideas. Resources and examples from the project repositories can help get started.
3. Explore Security and Privacy Configurations: By building prototypes, setting up test environments, or simulating messaging workflows, the community can experiment with authentication, encryption, and access control setups to see how patient data could be protected under the new standard.

Let’s Build a Connected Dutch Healthcare Community

Projects such as Openfire and Smack give us the building blocks to explore messaging that’s secure, reliable, and ready for the future. By experimenting, prototyping, and sharing insights, the community can help ensure the new Dutch healthcare chat standard meets real-world needs from day one.

And since the Ignite Realtime Foundation is a Dutch stichting with local contributors and partners, we like to think of this as more than just coding - let’s discuss the possibilities over a stroopwafel sometime!

For more information and to join the conversation, visit Ignite Realtime and introduce yourself in our community at disource.igniterealtime.org. Together, we can help Dutch healthcare teams communicate better and build a strong, collaborative XMPP ecosystem in the Netherlands.

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Recently, Guus and and I co-authored XEP-0483: HTTP Online Meetings. I have just finished implementing the XEP across three Openfire plugins (ofmeet, galene and orinayo)

I also implemented it in the client olmeet plugins for both spark and conversejs.

So what’s the benefit?

Both spark and pade can now:

• auto-discover what audio/video conferencing service is available and configured in Openfire (jitsi, galene or broadcastbox),
• request for a web app URL and use it to
• invite others to the meeting. If their client supports XEP-0483, the web app will be opened in the client otherwise, it will be opened in the desktop web browser.
• fallback on a static base URL configured in client if their XMPP server does not yet support xep-0483.

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