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Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

matrix.org

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Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#101

Post by Arathorn »

Leace wrote: post #100
unicornporn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't it possible to just revive XMPP? Please no. XMPP has adapted over time to support various chat and instant messaging features that we today take for granted. These adaptions come in the form of Extensions[1]. A year ago I spent about two hours with a geek friend to configure something that resembles what we get from any other instant messenger today. That's not acceptable to the outside world. Meanwhile, Matr…

> Funny thing, Matrix is still struggling (like every other federated network) to explain the concept of federation. Are there any data on how federated is Matrix? I mean number of users on different servers. From my experience most of people are on matrix.org server and even if they run their own homeservers the identity server is still vector.im.

From memory, about 50% of the users visible in Matrix are on the matrix.org server, which is one of about 30K deployments total that we're aware of, directly or indirectly. This will likely change in the near future as the French deployment expands, which should dwarf the matrix.org server. In the medium/long term, we'd like to at least disable registration on the matrix.org server if not turn it off entirely (once decentralised accounts land).

The identity server is used ONLY for mapping email addresses and phone numbers to matrix IDs, and is strictly optional, so I'm not sure it counts as centralisation. We are also hoping to remove it entirely from the mix in future (switching to storing 3pid->mxid mappings per room instead).

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#102

Post by JeremyBanks »

bmn__ wrote: post #96
superfist wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have very same impression. XMPP is basing on XML where parsing is order of magniture more complex than JSON. In lot of ways very similar to SOAP mess where you could not comunicate across different software because each of them supportet different set of SOAP extensions and good luck with communicating with web client.

> XML where parsing is order of magniture more complex than JSON You're supposed to use an off-the-shelf XML/JSON parser, not write it yourself.

Even if you don't parse it yourself, XMLs data model is usually more of a chore to consume.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Leace wrote: post #100
unicornporn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't it possible to just revive XMPP? Please no. XMPP has adapted over time to support various chat and instant messaging features that we today take for granted. These adaptions come in the form of Extensions[1]. A year ago I spent about two hours with a geek friend to configure something that resembles what we get from any other instant messenger today. That's not acceptable to the outside world. Meanwhile, Matr…

> Funny thing, Matrix is still struggling (like every other federated network) to explain the concept of federation. Are there any data on how federated is Matrix? I mean number of users on different servers. From my experience most of people are on matrix.org server and even if they run their own homeservers the identity server is still vector.im.

[deleted]

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#104

Post by jbverschoor »

pedroaraujo wrote: post #81
tannhaeuser wrote: post #55

I'm not very much into chat apps and protocols, but isn't it possible to just revive XMPP? Ten years ago we used Adium and Pidgin, and federated chat seemed like a solved problem. I understand XMPP with its extensions and use of XML fragments might be complex, but it sounds like matrix or another new protocol isn't easier. In a way, those willing to invest time into F/OSS chat apps have done the best they could with…

Why are people so attached to XMPP? There was no entity preventing XMPP from thriving, if the community really wanted XMPP, we would have had XMPP everywhere. But honestly, as someone who ran and tried to use XMPP for many years, the entire protocol was an unmaintained divided mess. And the XEPs didn't help, they felt like hacky workarounds to keep an old protocol up-to-date with the modern needs. Matrix feels very c…

Weren't facebook messenger and google talk based on xmpp? I know that at least they were compatible, but in the end they removed that. Trying to force people on their own client

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#105

Post by mindB »

Arathorn wrote: post #64
StudentStuff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be great if there were usable non-Riot clients that fully supported end to end cryptography. At this point Signal has better alternative clients in Pyre.chat and Signal-Weechat than Matrix has, as the existing alternative clients are almost all MVPs missing major features like e2e. The lack of a simple, common library is a real sticking point. Each client & bot shouldn't have to implement the baseline network pr…

So, other clients with fully working E2E encryption include: Seaglass, Weechat, Pattle and nheko (although it needs to implement attachments, but they is easy). The weechat and nheko implementations are independent implementations (ie not the same as the Riot ones). We are starting work this week on closing the E2E gap for all the rest.

Oh neat. Is the plan to write a proxy sitting between client and server and decrypting/encrypting all events so any client can be used in e2ee rooms?

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#108

Post by TuringTest »

notyourday wrote: post #95
Animats wrote: post #31

The home page gives no clue as to what "Matrix" is. It seems to be yet another "federation" system. Is this worth any attention?

It's the standard problem of software designed by software engineers: they have a problem turning off their geek-brain to see how a potential user views it. Matrix folks: * if a teenager cannot understand what it is in 10 seconds of looking at it or if a teenager does not download the client after understanding what it is your product is hopelessly broken * if a 30 year old cannot understand what it is in 20 seconds…

That's why you point users to Riot.im instead...

Seriously, you don't expose end users to platform-level infrastructure. Matrix audience is software engineers, so it's good that matrix.org is dedicated to explain itself to developers. The tools you build on top of it, those are the ones you show to end users.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#109

Post by tannhaeuser »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #102
bmn__ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> XML where parsing is order of magniture more complex than JSON You're supposed to use an off-the-shelf XML/JSON parser, not write it yourself.

Even if you don't parse it yourself, XMLs data model is usually more of a chore to consume.

XML/SGML is highly appropriate for representing rich text, though, which is the purpose of chat apps/logs. Using JSON you'd have to invent ad-hoc markup on top of JSON, loosing any advantage it may have.
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