>> I'm looking for a decentralized instant message system (e.g. XMPP, SIP, >> ...) where I can be sure that I receive all messages, even if I'm not >> connected when the message is sent [ Obviously, I'll only receive them >> when I'm back online. ] > I believe that's called "electronic mail" or "email".
There's that, and there are SMS messages as well, indeed. But email is a lot more heavyweight and drowned in spam (e.g. most people don't get notified right away when they receive an email message), and SMS is basically limited to cell-phone only (you can find services that let you send SMS messages from something like a SIP account, but I haven't found any corresponding service for the reception of SMS messages, except some that just drop the SMS message if the SIP delivery cannot be performed because you're not connected). Stefan