Multi-instance conversation

[juniorz]

From the plugin perspective, something like this should be possible:

1. Alice (on device 1101) has an OTR conversation with Bob (on device 1201).
2. Bob (on device 1202) starts a new OTR conversation with Alice (still on device 1101).
3. Alice should have both conversations running simultaneously, and should be able to receive and send messages to both conversations.

libotr keeps a separate context for each of these conversations and automatically manages when to add new contexts when a new instance tag is seen.

When a message is sent, you may choose to send it to a particular instance tag or tell the library which strategy to use when deciding which instance should receive the message (OTRL_INSTAG_BEST, OTRL_INSTAG_RECENT, OTRL_INSTAG_RECENT_RECEIVED, OTRL_INSTAG_RECENT_SENT).

At the moment, we only support a single conversation with a peer (identified by its ID, like alice@tw.com).

[olabini]

I think we need to be careful to not do too much of the instance tag management in the libotr-ng - I suspect the plugin should be more responsible for this, just as we have it in the otr3 for Go-lang.

[claucece]

This needs careful investigation to see if it makes sense for OTRv4.

[olabini]

This involves looking at whether it makes sense, which policies makes sense, and also whether we should move some of this functionality away from libotr-ng to pidgin-otrng.

[claucece]

After investigating a little bit from the plugin perspective:

• Alice (on device 1101) starts an OTR conversation with Bob (on device 1201) and Bob (on device 1201).
• Bob (on device 1202 and 1201) receives the DAKE from Alice, but only one device receives data messages (not sure how this is chosen).

This also happens:

• Alice (on device 1101) has an OTR conversation with Bob (on device 1201).
• Bob (on device 1202) starts a new OTR conversation with Alice (still on device 1101).
• Alice can send messages only to device 1202, and only receive from device 1201.