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Automattic invests in Matrix

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Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#61

Post by Arathorn »

morceauxdebois wrote: post #44
Arathorn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this on Riot or RiotX on Android? All dev in the last year has been on RiotX, which should be an unrecognisably better app and will shortly replace Riot on Android (hopefully end of June).

Completely unrelated but are there any plans for setting a explicit content filter for riot? At the moment on RiotX you only need to scroll down 7 times in the room directory on matrix.org to see rooms dedicated to sexual content. I think it would be beneficial for broader mass adoption.

Yup. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/msc2313/propos... is the sort of direction this work is going; meanwhile we manually try to keep the matrix.org public directory uncontroversial.

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#62

Post by mawalu »

Boulth wrote: post #47

VC money mixed with open source software again. It didn't end well for Keybase. I hope Matrix has a monetization strategy. Edit: for people interested there are company docs at https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10873661/filing-h... eg. "25 Mar 2020 Total exemption full accounts" document (2.2) shows a yearly loss of almost 2M pounds. Edit 2: it seems Matrix people no longer control 50% of their company share…

But keybase still has their server software that people depend on and that isn't open source. Worst that could happen with New Vector is that they stop paying developers to work for the Matrix.org foundation but that would not prevent anyone from continuing to use the existing software

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#63

Post by Arathorn »

ValentineC wrote: post #55

> Talking of moving, Hodgson says he expects Automattic to move over from Slack to Riot following this investment. Here's hoping Automattic has enough influence to move the WordPress.org open source and community discussions (which are currently hosted on Slack, but used to take place on IRC) to Matrix too.

That's the hope - the pressure is on the Riot/Matrix side to ensure that the transition is a no-brainer in terms of UX :)

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#64

Post by Arathorn »

vertex-four wrote: post #51

Every individual Matrix room is a multi-master, non-ACID database which uses its own data as security- and privacy-related configuration. Given how hard this is to get right, I'd really, really like to see Jepsen tests and a security audit done on more than the crypto aspect of Matrix.

There's a massive academic paper dedicated to Matrix's theoretical correctness (and the correctness of the Synapse implementation) going to be published in a few weeks. Wish it was already out, because it's spectacular :)

That said, nobody's done any Jepsen tests yet as far as we know, but we'd really welcome them!

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#65

Post by Arathorn »

justaj wrote: post #57
olah_1 wrote: post #48

> Imagine if every WP site automatically came with its own Matrix room or community? Imagine if all content in WP automatically was published into Matrix as well as the Web?… Imagine there was an excellent Matrix client available as a WordPress plugin for embedding realtime chat into your site?” I want to imagine it, but I really struggle to. Matrix is just too slow, bloated, and heavy. I cannot even fathom what a sn…

The main Matrix.org homeserver is pretty slow because it's usually overloaded: https://matrixservers.anchel.nl/783115140 This is IMO mainly because they've stuck with the main implementation of the homeserver (Synapse) being written in Python. Had they've gone through with developing Dendrite as the main implementation, or perhaps even gone with one written in Rust, all of this would feel much snappier. In a way, Den…

There are a bunch of Dendrites already running serverside on the public network there - it's almost out of alpha.

Meanwhile Conduit (http://conduit.rs/) is a new implementation in Rust which is making spectacular progress (it's overtaken Dendrite in some places already).

Both of them are unrecognisably snappy, relative to Synapse - even when Synapse isn't completely overloaded.

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#66

Post by rwmj »

Arathorn wrote: post #33
rwmj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I bump two phones together to exchange keys (using NFC or similar)? That would be the killer feature for us when we do conferences - perhaps more relevant to the Before Covid times of course.

You could, but we chose to do QR codes first as it's a bit more intentional and slightly harder to MITM.

Makes sense - that's also the method WeChat uses for many things including associating users.

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#67

Post by vertex-four »

Arathorn wrote: post #64
vertex-four wrote: post #51

Every individual Matrix room is a multi-master, non-ACID database which uses its own data as security- and privacy-related configuration. Given how hard this is to get right, I'd really, really like to see Jepsen tests and a security audit done on more than the crypto aspect of Matrix.

There's a massive academic paper dedicated to Matrix's theoretical correctness (and the correctness of the Synapse implementation) going to be published in a few weeks. Wish it was already out, because it's spectacular :) That said, nobody's done any Jepsen tests yet as far as we know, but we'd really welcome them!

Getting a Jepsen test done involves paying Aphyr for it, which I imagine you could do with this lovely new investment. Information here: https://jepsen.io/analyses

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#68

Post by Arathorn »

mawalu wrote: post #62
Boulth wrote: post #47

VC money mixed with open source software again. It didn't end well for Keybase. I hope Matrix has a monetization strategy. Edit: for people interested there are company docs at https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10873661/filing-h... eg. "25 Mar 2020 Total exemption full accounts" document (2.2) shows a yearly loss of almost 2M pounds. Edit 2: it seems Matrix people no longer control 50% of their company share…

But keybase still has their server software that people depend on and that isn't open source. Worst that could happen with New Vector is that they stop paying developers to work for the Matrix.org foundation but that would not prevent anyone from continuing to use the existing software

Yeah, we (Matrix) have a fundamentally different model to Keybase. The Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation) is an independent neutral entity that safeguards the protocol and ecosystem, with the mission to protect it from being sabotaged by any actors in the ecosystem (including New Vector - https://vector.im, the startup founded by the team who created Matrix).

Even if New Vector did go evil (e.g: bought by EvilCorp; coerced into adding backdoors; tried to monetise user data/metadata; tried to relicense opensource stuff as proprietary; tried to add core functionality as paid-only) then both the Foundation and the wider ecosystem would fight back; rejecting the obnoxious changes to the spec, or simply going and supporting an alternative provider.

Meanwhile, if New Vector did implode, the team could still go elsewhere and keep working on Matrix if they wanted to - and there are an increasing number of folks who might hire them to do so. e.g. Automattic's new Matrix job opening! " rel="nofollow">https://automattic.com/work-with-us/matrix-integrations-engi...

edit: the monetisation strategy for New Vector is selling Matrix hosting (https://modular.im) and helping out big folks like Governments who want to jump on board Matrix. While the company is certainly not profitable yet, it certainly has a path to being sustainable (otherwise folks like Automattic wouldn't invest!)

Re: Automattic invests in Matrix

#70

Post by Boulth »

mawalu wrote: post #62
Boulth wrote: post #47

VC money mixed with open source software again. It didn't end well for Keybase. I hope Matrix has a monetization strategy. Edit: for people interested there are company docs at https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10873661/filing-h... eg. "25 Mar 2020 Total exemption full accounts" document (2.2) shows a yearly loss of almost 2M pounds. Edit 2: it seems Matrix people no longer control 50% of their company share…

But keybase still has their server software that people depend on and that isn't open source. Worst that could happen with New Vector is that they stop paying developers to work for the Matrix.org foundation but that would not prevent anyone from continuing to use the existing software

Nope, worse is that investors subtly want to extract value from them e.g. utilizing user data from identity server on vector.im or so.

Even if they just "went Keybase" not having people outside of the org working on it would slowly bring them the XMPP fate (irrelevance).

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