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Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

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Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#81
post #54

Any one knows the progress of dendrite? Have not used matrix/riot for a while. It was too heavy to run awhile back. Hopefully they make the client and server more light weight.

We've just hired a new full-time employee to work on Dendrite and p2p matrix. Expect rapid progress on Dendrite as of a few days ago. https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite

(two new employees actually ;P)

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#82

> effectively using Matrix as a big decentralised IRC bouncer in the sky. No. In theory it is, but in practice it's a big centralized IRC bouncer in the sky where everyone is reliant on riot.im servers.

Not really: anyone can run an IRC bridge, and many people do. The #mozilla_#wherever:matrix.org namespace is the preexisting moznet bridge run by Matrix.org (not Riot.im), but anyone with their own server could also run their own bridge, much like they could run their own bouncer today. There is then additional decentralisation from the fact that the room history is replicated throughout all the participating Matrix…

Anyone can, few do. At least in terms of what I see on the 20 IRC networks I'm connected to. The only one where people actually tend to run their own Matrix servers is on OFTC with the Freedombox (https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox) people. On Freenode I don't think I have ever seen someone connect from a Matrix server that wasn't riot.im since the creation of the Matrix protocol.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What benefits would Mozilla get from running their own server and federation (that they have with ircd today)?

Good publicity for decentralization. If they can get it to work, it shows that it’s possible to run a large instance from a non-central host.

Well, sure it's possible. They don't need to prove it.

But I don't think Mozilla has such a large userbase that it would make any difference.

I like the publicity angle but maybe that's for the future. If Mozilla validates the transition and wants to get more involved with Matrix.org then it'd make sense to own and manage their own stuff.

I like that they are being cautious and not jumping with both feet in.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#85
post #12
post #6

Can't wait for Mozilla to back a stable, native desktop client into a daily driver state so we can finally ditch Mattermost at work.

Seriously, I feel like it’s such an indictment on native app tool development that we have a bazillion new electron apps written by ppl all the time for weekend projects yet almost no one spitting out native apps to interface with services. It’s clearly in demand (if a bit of a niche kind of demand)

There are a bunch of very promising native desktop Matrix clients in progress:

https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko as a Qt telegram-like

https://github.com/quotient-im/Quaternion as a Qt xchat-like

https://github.com/manuroe/messagerie for instance is a SwiftUI client proof-of-concept that should work on macOS as well as iOS

None are as polished as Riot functionalitywise, but we will get there eventually - even more so if people contribute.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#86

Wow this already looks like a fractured mess! https://matrix.org/clients/ Why are there so many clients with different supported functionality?

Matrix successfully competes with XMPP. It even features a more fractured mess with a lower number of clients in a shorter time span!

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#88
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official successor to Synapse homeserver is Dendrite written in Go ( https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite ). There is homeserver project in Rust called Ruma ( https://github.com/ruma/ruma ). Ruma was waiting for async/await to stabilize. But it doesn't seem to have much activity even after that.

It looks like Ruma was waiting for an async web framework to emerge, and the web frameworks were waiting on hyper to upgrade, and hyper was waiting on h2 to upgrade, and h2 was waiting on http to upgrade, and http was waiting on bytes to upgrade, and everyone was waiting on tokio to upgrade. In the six weeks since async await has stabilized, the web framework that my company uses has only just managed to upgrade to s…

Thank you for that perspective. I apologize if it sounded like I am blaming Ruma - just waiting eagerly for its development.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good publicity for decentralization. If they can get it to work, it shows that it’s possible to run a large instance from a non-central host.

Well, sure it's possible. They don't need to prove it. But I don't think Mozilla has such a large userbase that it would make any difference. I like the publicity angle but maybe that's for the future. If Mozilla validates the transition and wants to get more involved with Matrix.org then it'd make sense to own and manage their own stuff. I like that they are being cautious and not jumping with both feet in.

At a technical level, the Mozilla homeserver will be as decentralised as any other server in Matrix: i.e. entirely independent, and federating with the rest of the Matrix as normal.

At a legal level, it's true that the server will be admined by New Vector via Modular.im - but this is basically Mozilla just outsourcing their sysadmin to Modular, while also helping fund Matrix development (given that Modular subscriptions are used to fund development on Synapse and Matrix in general).

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