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Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

matrix.org

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Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#21

Post by donpdonp »

jasonzemos wrote: post #19
donpdonp wrote: post #14

the matrix is the great irc replacement that never was. i wanted to like the matrix, i still do, yet every time I use it, the list of terrible user experiences remains the same. its slow. its so slow. the riot design/layout is klunky. its slow. the federation is confusing. for example searching or browsing the list of channels 'works' maybe 5% of the time and its not clear how broad the search is attempting to be. it…

Independent Matrix Server developer here. You might be interested in a community-driven implementation that I work on which aims to address these issues. I'm delighted to read from you here that we share a goal for a great IRC replacement: https://github.com/matrix-construct/construct

thanks for the link. do you have a sense of whether the slowness is more in the web client or in the server response times?

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#22

Post by Arathorn »

meruru wrote: post #20
Arathorn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the Synapse port to Python 3 is complete :D However, the next-gen one we're working on ( https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite ) is in Go. Nim rocks though, and it'd be wonderful for someone to write a Nim homeserver (especially as we finally have a stable release of the server-server API at last!!)

Can you give a rough idea about how long it will take for Dendrite to be ready? I want to run a homeserver for friends, but I'd like to go straight to Dendrite and not have to deal with Synapse if possible.

it'll be a while yet. we've been focusing on hitting Matrix 1.0 by iterating on the Python codebase (Synapse) rather than diluting the effort by doing it on Dendrite in parallel. Once 1.0 is safely out the door and the first wave of post-1.0 features and perf have landed in Synapse then I suspect Dendrite will see more love.

tl;dr: Synapse is getting (much) better; i wouldn't wait for Dendrite but give Synapse a go on Py3 instead for now.

that said, once Dendrite lands, it should be 1-2 orders of magnitude more efficient by most metrics :)

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#23

Post by jasonzemos »

donpdonp wrote: post #21
jasonzemos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent Matrix Server developer here. You might be interested in a community-driven implementation that I work on which aims to address these issues. I'm delighted to read from you here that we share a goal for a great IRC replacement: https://github.com/matrix-construct/construct

thanks for the link. do you have a sense of whether the slowness is more in the web client or in the server response times?

It's really a confluence of factors. There are even elements rooted from the specification itself that contribute, for example requiring many round trips in network interactions with a lot of different servers; requiring large amounts of random disk access to implement core features... These things tend to shape the experience born out of client and server implementations even after a fair amount of performance work. I hope that Matrix-org makes an effort to consolidate the specification into something more streamlined for any upcoming versions.

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#24

Post by meruru »

Arathorn wrote: post #22
meruru wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a rough idea about how long it will take for Dendrite to be ready? I want to run a homeserver for friends, but I'd like to go straight to Dendrite and not have to deal with Synapse if possible.

it'll be a while yet. we've been focusing on hitting Matrix 1.0 by iterating on the Python codebase (Synapse) rather than diluting the effort by doing it on Dendrite in parallel. Once 1.0 is safely out the door and the first wave of post-1.0 features and perf have landed in Synapse then I suspect Dendrite will see more love. tl;dr: Synapse is getting (much) better; i wouldn't wait for Dendrite but give Synapse a go o…

Thanks. I think you're doing the right thing.

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#25

Post by dane-pgp »

While I'm very excited about the prospects for Matrix in 2019, the reality of client choice for end-to-end encrypted Matrix chat is currently disappointing compared to the potential it has.

Someone on reddit gathered some data [1] about E2EE support a few months ago, and Debian maintain a wiki page [2] about their progress packaging Matrix-implementing applications.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/9avyen/sad_state_o...

[2] https://wiki.debian.org/Matrix

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#26

Post by balladeer »

Arathorn wrote: post #8
gonehome wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an idea how this compares to Keybase.io and their team based chat? What's the main difference with matrix? Is Keybase something you were aware of and decided against for some reason?

Matrix is an open standard protocol ( https://matrix.org/docs/spec ) and an open network like the Web, but for realtime comms. Anyone can spin up a server and start participating in the network, and in Matrix the conversations are replicated over all the servers whose users participate in that conversation, so there is no single point of failure or control: the conversations are owned by the users. All the implementa…

Any plans to focus on Riot as a, let's say, WhatsApp/Signal alternative too from what it actually seems as of now which is just being Slack/IRC alternative?

And with that any chances an easier way of having an ID/username? @:matrix.org seems extremely easy and convenient for me but may not be the same for my friends and family without whom any messaging platform is useless.

PS. Totally rooting for you guys! I wish Signal was federated though.

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#27

Post by zanny »

balladeer wrote: post #26
Arathorn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix is an open standard protocol ( https://matrix.org/docs/spec ) and an open network like the Web, but for realtime comms. Anyone can spin up a server and start participating in the network, and in Matrix the conversations are replicated over all the servers whose users participate in that conversation, so there is no single point of failure or control: the conversations are owned by the users. All the implementa…

Any plans to focus on Riot as a, let's say, WhatsApp/Signal alternative too from what it actually seems as of now which is just being Slack/IRC alternative? And with that any chances an easier way of having an ID/username? @ :matrix.org seems extremely easy and convenient for me but may not be the same for my friends and family without whom any messaging platform is useless. PS. Totally rooting for you guys! I wish S…

Riot is already a pretty servicable Signal / WhatsApp alternative. You can start conversations by username or email in one on one rooms that you can encrypt and they show up as separate entries besides the groupchats in Riots UI.

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#28

Post by zanny »

donpdonp wrote: post #21
jasonzemos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent Matrix Server developer here. You might be interested in a community-driven implementation that I work on which aims to address these issues. I'm delighted to read from you here that we share a goal for a great IRC replacement: https://github.com/matrix-construct/construct

thanks for the link. do you have a sense of whether the slowness is more in the web client or in the server response times?

Synapse, the reference impl server, was always pretty slow. It got a lot faster with its Python 3 transition and there is a Go server in development that I think the core team means to focus on once 1.0 is out.

There are also native clients like Fractal and Quaternion that use GTK / Qt UIs that are just as fast as any other native app.

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#29

Post by spricket »

Running Matrix + Riot.im for my "family chat" server since Hangouts is going away. Bit hokey to setup but highly recommended.

Fast enough for us and it's nice to be able to save all the pictures your family sends in full quality. They stream straight to my S3 buckets. Run this on a 5$/month digital ocean droplet and it could probably support hundreds of users.

The mobile and desktop apps are easy enough for mid-60s parents to figure out, a huge shortcoming to all the other OSS chat solutions I know of

Re: Matrix at FOSDEM 2019

#30

Post by zanny »

There is a bright future where individual users can trivially (like one click deployment trivial) spin up a Mastodon and Matrix container and have their own social network and IM server running in minutes that federates with all the others in a giant decentralized web. Again.

I'll keep pressuring everyone I know to migrate to federated replacements for monolithic proprietary alternatives.

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