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Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

matrix.org

21–30 of 167 posts

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC's biggest weakness is the protocol didn't transition cleanly to a mobile world. But apart from that, it's still as good as it always was.

IRC's biggest weakness is the lack of a consistent history mechanism and that you usually need to idle.

things like irccloud made this easier for consumers this but it was too late

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#24
The whole thing with freenode-> libera and now this has been a shitshow to say the least. I am glad some communities are moving to discord where things are stable and reliable. Instead of implementing proper registration process for example, libera bans ip addresses from tor and vpns unless you auth first and you have to register with an email and an ip they like. I have many criticisms of matrix/element but in this case it looks like yet another libera complaint that is at issue, not really matrix's fault I think.

The only thing I'll say about matrix is they have a lot of cool features but a smooth/fast experience like discord is the only thing they are missing to compete there but aside from philosophy I see no reason to avoid discord unless I want to operare a server instance. To me it's like webmail, I don't care if gmail or proronmail are opensource as much as I care about their security and reliability. I mean, I gotta applaud all the folks that worked on matrix clients, but there is still much left to be desired, I wish I could help in some way.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#25
post #14

This seems like an inevitable progression of the de-portaling in July: https://matrix.org/blog/2023/07/deportalling-libera-chat/ I wonder whether the July move prompted users to find other ways to connect to Libera.chat besides Matrix, killing usage of the bridge, leading us here. Thanks to those involved for the efforts while they could be sustained!

I wrote my own IRC + Matrix client to bridge the channels I operate. I've made the source code available under the terms of the MIT license here: https://github.com/susam/nimb

If you find any issues, bugs, etc. in this tool, please let me know. Although this tool works well for my modest requirements, someone else may find issues while using this tool that I have not encountered yet. In such a case, bug reports, pull requests, patches, etc. are very welcome!

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#26

Some channels on libera have been awful, a ton of [m] names, and long repetitive messages converted from matrix. I know I might be using a dying medium but I enjoy IRC the way it is.

Not a fan of IRC, but I agree. Bridges and multi protocol clients just suck. They never work flawlessly and result in a ton of annoyance for people on both sides.

Use the client for the group you are in rather than some bodged together bridge.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#27

Huh? Wasn't anybody using the Matrix bridge to Libera Chat IRC? Seems like IRC is really dead and only used by a very tiny small minority of people.

IRC is far from dead. My relatively unknown oss work has a channel on libera which is seeing ~100 message per month Also Slack made the same move a couple years ago, first trying to appeal to IRC users at the beginning and then shut it all off when they had everyone else

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time Matrix is cold as ice, IRC will still see activity. Sufficiently simple protocols have some aura of immortality to them, and Matrix is the opposite of that.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#28

I've been using heisenbridge[0] to do my Matrix to IRC bridging and I like it. Not a broader solution to the problem since most people don't want to run their own services, but it works well for me and is no different to a bouncer for IRC servers, noone knows it's actually Matrix on the other side. [0]: https://github.com/hifi/heisenbridge

Same here, I really like it. Really easy to configure and setup.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#30
post #25
post #14

This seems like an inevitable progression of the de-portaling in July: https://matrix.org/blog/2023/07/deportalling-libera-chat/ I wonder whether the July move prompted users to find other ways to connect to Libera.chat besides Matrix, killing usage of the bridge, leading us here. Thanks to those involved for the efforts while they could be sustained!

I wrote my own IRC + Matrix client to bridge the channels I operate. I've made the source code available under the terms of the MIT license here: https://github.com/susam/nimb If you find any issues, bugs, etc. in this tool, please let me know. Although this tool works well for my modest requirements, someone else may find issues while using this tool that I have not encountered yet. In such a case, bug reports, pull…

You need to split on (or sanitize) null bytes here: https://github.com/susam/nimb/blob/b40d87ddf2e1134fed4d7380b... and sanitize NUL/CR/LF from the prefix (well, display_name) here: https://github.com/susam/nimb/blob/b40d87ddf2e1134fed4d7380b...

Otherwise you may have a command injection vulnerability similar to what matrix-appservice-irc used to have: https://pktz.fr/matrix/security/2022-appservice-irc-command-... (though with carriage returns instead of null bytes)

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