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Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

matrix.org

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Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#161

Post by camgunz »

vilunov wrote: post #157
camgunz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's what "effectively" means. Sometimes hard things are hard, and it turns out a distributed E2E messaging system is one of those things. Same goes for writing a fit-for-purpose C compiler. Doesn't make GCC or the C standard any less open. > Only one non-Element server is there is "Production ready", and it's dead. Yeah I think reasonably you're looking at Synapse, Dendrite, and Conduit -- all Element-written. I…

> distributed E2E messaging system The thing is, customers don't necessarily want a distributed messaging system, they might be perfectly fine with a decentralized one if it supports E2EE. Matrix went the way they did and it's far from obvious whether it was a good choice. I'm leaning towards no. > but someone's done it three times You can do it however times you want and it will be easy to do if you have access to o…

> The thing is, customers don't necessarily want a distributed messaging system, they might be perfectly fine with a decentralized one if it supports E2EE.

Maybe! You could argue that basically all the successful messaging systems except for email and IRC (if IRC still counts as successful) are centralized, so there's that.

> You can do it however times you want and it will be easy to do if you have access to one of the few domain experts of the protocol.

In fairness, I don't know how you implement a client/server for a protocol w/o being a domain expert in it. Try building an IRC server, an IMAP server, an ActivityPub server, etc. and remaining ignorant about the details about IRC, IMAP, ActivityPub, etc. This has felt like an odd benchmark to me this whole thread.

> Blockchains are DAGs, they are not necessarily trees.

Eh, I really think they're trees because they're Merkle trees. Each block contains the hash of the previous block, not some random other block as it would be if it were a graph. Even with uncle/orphan blocks, it's still a tree.

> Although Merkle trees are used in the underlying block data structure, this is orthogonal to the blockchain concept and any data structure could be stored there.

Definitely not, because the hashes prove the tree's correctness. You can verify any branch, which you want to do to ensure you're not getting scammed. The Merkle tree concept is essential to the verifiability of blockchains.

> Unless I'm missing something about MLS, you're mixing unrelated stuff here.

Sorry I was a little opaque. Matrix' handling of rooms is suboptimal for lots of reasons, but one is what you pointed out: they don't have great performance and thus desync a lot. MLS has a cool tree-based Ologn algorithm for fixing this. It's a process to get there [0], but I'm excited for when it happens.

[0]: https://arewemlsyet.com/

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#162

Post by _8j50 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #137
_8j50 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except element does choke my browser/system (32g ram, many cores) even with rooms that aren't all that big. Slack does the same, discord doesn't even with large rooms and 100+ rooms open.

Hm I haven't had any issues like that. I do have room sync issues where it takes forever to join a large room, but nothing wrong with the app itself. I'm also using the Electron app across platforms and maybe it handles differently across browsers, but I use the Discord Electron app also.

FWIW, slack has this issue as well. It might because unlike IRC, every DM is a room and has similar resources, and 50 people messaging you is the same as joining 50 rooms and I don't have the patience to "leave" a DM.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#163

Post by Arathorn »

Laaas wrote: post #156
Arathorn wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with the state of synapse, matrix.org, and the project in general, I wouldn't consider trying that for another 12-18 months. Or more. Synapse is very stable these days, and relatively resource efficient. Matrix.org (both the server, website, spec and foundation) is in a good place too, as is (from my biased pov as project lead) the project in general. > This is a huge "oopsie" to put it nicely We simply don't have…

Did you solve the funding issues after that Christmas (?) post about not having enough funds? I assume probably not fully given you don't have enough manpower?

No, we didn’t - as the Libera mess demonstrates. We are stuck in a nightmare situation where Matrix is successful, but most commercial projects building on it don’t contribute back either financially or otherwise. We’re now trying to fix that via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#164

Post by k8svet »

Arathorn wrote: post #150
k8svet wrote: post #103

I'm so incredibly conflicted about whether to keep investing time and energy and hope around Matrix. I normally have good tech intuition and matrix is in this weird spot. I think the vision and direction and attitudes are amazing but they keep fking up badly. I'm embarrassed at the thought that I would "soon" soft nudge my friends and family to matrix, years ago . With the state of synapse, matrix.org, and the projec…

> with the state of synapse, matrix.org, and the project in general, I wouldn't consider trying that for another 12-18 months. Or more. Synapse is very stable these days, and relatively resource efficient. Matrix.org (both the server, website, spec and foundation) is in a good place too, as is (from my biased pov as project lead) the project in general. > This is a huge "oopsie" to put it nicely We simply don't have…

I appreciate the reply. I just want to repeat, since I feel I was so negative, I like what I know of the matrix folks and I've always appreciated your willingness to dive into these threads. I'll be rooting for y'all until it's clear once again that Matrix is the likely long term future of interoperable chat. If only the world cared to invest in y'all like well, lots of other things.

Re-reading my posts, I guess I could be more specific. Y'all seem like you have great technical vision but are having a hard time with success, growth, and revenue. While I can appreciate some technical bits of Matrix, I would never dare to think I could do better than anyone at those real challenges. It hurts to read about y'all struggling for dev funds, in spite of success. And I feel like that probably weighs on you, it would weigh on me. Godspeed, good luck, I look forward to tomorrow's TWIM :).

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#165

Post by Arathorn »

Zetobal wrote: post #158
Arathorn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your vitriol is better directed at me (as Matrix project lead & founder) rather than Josh, whose role as MD for the Foundation is to ensure it gathers $ and distributes it as effectively as possible to support Matrix. The original post here is written by Josh because he took over diplomatics with Libera to give it a fresh start as an independent, given the breakdown in trust on both sides. In terms of Matrix…

If your intention was to suffocate competition you got it right.

If you're talking about Element switching its contributions to Synapse from Apache to AGPL, the rationale is that folks who want to commercialise Synapse will either have to a) opensource their changes, b) pay for an AGPL exception from Element, c) use a different server (e.g. Apache-licensed Conduit from https://conduit.rs) or d) write their own server.

This hardly feels like suffocating competition.

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#166

Post by Klonoar »

mort96 wrote: post #104
Klonoar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely dependent on what OSS you're working with, and not in any way representative of OSS as a whole.

That might be why I said “a whole host of open source projects” and not “all open source projects”.

> If you work with open source software, not using IRC really limits what you can do and who you can reach.

No, I was responding to the highlighted line here, which is fundamentally wrong. ;P

Re: Shutting down the Matrix bridge to Libera chat

#167

Post by mort96 »

Klonoar wrote: post #166
mort96 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be why I said “a whole host of open source projects” and not “all open source projects”.

> If you work with open source software, not using IRC really limits what you can do and who you can reach. No, I was responding to the highlighted line here, which is fundamentally wrong. ;P

I see.

That doesn't make a difference though? Not using IRC limits who you can reach. In some projects, all the interesting people are easily reachable through IRC (and less reachable through other channels).

Of course there are other projects where all the interesting people are reachable through matrix or gitter or zulip or slack, and if you're interacting with those projects, IRC won't do much to help you. That doesn't mean "not using IRC limits who you can reach" is false; it just means you may not have an interest of interacting with the people who you can't reach without IRC.

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