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Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

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Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#91

Post by Arathorn »

superkuh wrote: post #82
Arathorn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How would you even know, though? When running personal bridges I just have them auth as my normal user account like a bouncer. Or are you looking at CTCP versions?

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#92

Post by EGreg »

rwmj wrote: post #67
w354kjhllkj wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You answered your own question. You can write a pretty and functional Electron app in a weekend. To implement the same level of functionality and prettiness in a native app toolkit like Qt is at least a month of work. It's the same story as Python versus C, or C versus Assembly. When C was introduced, the old-timers had the same complains like we do today: why would you program in such a slow and inefficient language…

If Electron vs Qt/C++ were the only two choices that would be true. In reality there are lots of ways to write cross platform native apps without using C or C++: Gtk + scripting language of your choice (even Javascript); Tcl/Tk; WxWindows; Mono/C#; lots of Java options; Delphi/Lazarus.

Isn’t NW.js way better than Electron?

And they have a robust ecosystem

https://hackernoon.com/why-i-prefer-nw-js-over-electron-2018...

https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#93

Post by shantly »

jasonzemos wrote: post #70

This is really good news. I have only one question for Mozilla: why choose a solution whose hallmark is decentralization and the libre model- only to become a customer of a centralized host (modular.im). Why can't Mozilla actually federate? That's a step backward from your IRCd in my opinion. I hope Mozilla gets onboard with everyone else running their own Synapse, hacks on it, and pay their dues with patches, rather…

Matrix servers are kinda a pain in the ass to get up-and-running and to manage versus, say, XMPP or IRC. Especially if you can't get away with just running someone else's pre-built docker images for it, or whatever.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#95

Post by neiljohnson »

davidw wrote: post #84

Is there a low-friction way to give Matrix a try? Like a Hacker News channel that you can join with a web client or something?

Riot is a popular Matrix client and a good place to start., pointing your browser at https://riot.im/app/#/welcome

I'm unaware of a hacker news matrix channel (perhaps others can enlighten me), but joining the Matrix HQ channel (https://riot.im/app/#/room/#matrix:matrix.org) is a good place to learn more about Matrix.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#96

Post by superkuh »

Arathorn wrote: post #91
superkuh wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How would you even know, though? When running personal bridges I just have them auth as my normal user account like a bouncer. Or are you looking at CTCP versions?

The 'Real Name' field shows where they're proxying in from. Like the normal riot.im "@username:matrix.org" or self-hosted "@username:theirserver.address.tld". Is this an option that isn't the default for most matrix bridges/clients/whatever?

I guess if it doesn't show in their realname field I wouldn't see it. But I imagine since the defaults seems to be what I described above the amount of users that turned that off will be fairly small and irrelevant.

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#98

Post by Arathorn »

neiljohnson wrote: post #95
davidw wrote: post #84

Is there a low-friction way to give Matrix a try? Like a Hacker News channel that you can join with a web client or something?

Riot is a popular Matrix client and a good place to start., pointing your browser at https://riot.im/app/#/welcome I'm unaware of a hacker news matrix channel (perhaps others can enlighten me), but joining the Matrix HQ channel ( https://riot.im/app/#/room/#matrix:matrix.org ) is a good place to learn more about Matrix.

There's https://riot.im/app/#/room/#hn:matrix.org, but it's sadly very dead and not bridged anywhere useful. Is there actually a good chat community for HN anywhere?

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#99

Post by basilgohar »

jasonzemos wrote: post #70

This is really good news. I have only one question for Mozilla: why choose a solution whose hallmark is decentralization and the libre model- only to become a customer of a centralized host (modular.im). Why can't Mozilla actually federate? That's a step backward from your IRCd in my opinion. I hope Mozilla gets onboard with everyone else running their own Synapse, hacks on it, and pay their dues with patches, rather…

They are using a hosted provider, run by the makers of Matrix themselves. This lets them get the benefits of federation while making the hosting someone else's problem.

Of course, we all want to see Mozilla bootstrap their own Matrix instance, but maybe the cost/benefit equation worked out differently for them than we would have expected. I can imagine this lets them replace IRC with a better solution faster while still supporting the development of an open standard by becoming a client of the company that's developing it.

Does this forebode something more sinister? I hope not...

Re: Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision

#100

Post by est31 »

jasonzemos wrote: post #70

This is really good news. I have only one question for Mozilla: why choose a solution whose hallmark is decentralization and the libre model- only to become a customer of a centralized host (modular.im). Why can't Mozilla actually federate? That's a step backward from your IRCd in my opinion. I hope Mozilla gets onboard with everyone else running their own Synapse, hacks on it, and pay their dues with patches, rather…

Can you tell me more about the modular.im behaviour/policy towards federation? Is it explicitly turned off?

Also, IRC has federation too by having multiple servers in a network. IIRC Mozilla hadn't allowed you to do this for moznet did they? So how is this different?

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