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Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

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Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#111

Post by Leace »

Arathorn wrote: post #101
Leace wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 d…

Thanks for your post. I've been wondering about federation distribution in various protocols since seeing similar stats for Mastodon [0]. Having federated protocol where vast majority of users still use one server is sub-optimal IMHO (this is not only for Matrix).

[0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html

As for identity server, it was just surprising for me (from user's perspective) that when my friends ran a homeserver I still needed a lot of config on Riot for Android to connect to (homeserver URL, identity server URL). I've seen some well-known URIs [1] but sadly Riot for Android did not query them for my e-mail.

[1]: https://f-droid.org/.well-known/matrix/client

Thanks for your work on Matrix, glad that you guys are pushing the boundaries of UX of open-source software!

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#112

Post by MattJ100 »

jbverschoor wrote: post #104
pedroaraujo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is the problem - if you have a large user base there is simply no business incentive for federation. It is so much easier (and cheaper) to just build your own silo without worrying about interoperability. Plus you have the ability to monetize a closed system through ads, data mining, etc. There are so many advantages.

And people don't complain (much) because, for chat especially, they have had years of conditioning that leads them to accept (and expect) that communication with their online contacts depends on installing multiple apps from multiple vendors and sharing their data with those vendors on whatever terms the vendors decide.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#113

Post by choicenotchance »

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…

Setting up ejabberd and making it nice enough to have the features I wanted with a Django backend, man it was a hit n miss nightmare. And thank god someone had the same problems as me before, otherwise I would have had to implement a chat server in Twisted or Tornado.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#114

Post by Boulth »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #109
JeremyBanks wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Using JSON you'd have to invent ad-hoc markup on top of JSON

That's basically a description of ActivityPub that wraps HTML in JSON!

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#115

Post by davefp »

I think Matrix is brilliant. I run a synapse home server and updating/maintaining it has been a breeze.

That said, on a couple of occasions (once a while ago, and once with Riot 1.0) I've tried migrating from my free Slack org to Matrix and it still falls short for the feature set I want.

Specifically, I want a community whose members can create rooms for that community that are automatically visible and private to the community. Currently the community features in Riot make that a difficult task.

If anyone has had success doing this I'd be more than happy to hear about it!

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#116

Post by gnomewascool »

Arathorn wrote: post #21
fro0116 wrote: post #8

I had a pretty positive view of Matrix until I came across this post and the follow up responses from the developer behind an unofficial Matrix server implementation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365968 I'd say tread carefully given their apparent hostility towards competing server implementations, which is literally the only thing that makes the protocol meaningfully "federated" to begin with. This part in…

I'm the project lead for Matrix (and CEO of New Vector, the company which hires most of the core Matrix team) and can try to clarify this. 1. We don't have any hostility to alternative server implementations; it would be utterly idiotic to sabotage the project by doing so. Instead, we promote them, even when they're written by people who for whatever reason have issues with the project. For instance, if you look at h…

Thank you for continuing your FOSS work despite the attacks and for taking the high ground / mostly maintaining civility from your side (even keeping up with updates to Construct)!

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#117

Post by JeremyBanks »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #109
JeremyBanks wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody uses rich text formatting, and even if they did, the message body is only a small fraction of the total protocol content.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#118

Post by jeltz »

Perceptes wrote: post #54
fro0116 wrote: post #8

I had a pretty positive view of Matrix until I came across this post and the follow up responses from the developer behind an unofficial Matrix server implementation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19365968 I'd say tread carefully given their apparent hostility towards competing server implementations, which is literally the only thing that makes the protocol meaningfully "federated" to begin with. This part in…

I'm the original creator of Ruma, another homeserver implementation, and our project has received nothing but support and appreciation from the Matrix team. It's true that Synapse is the only homeserver that is in a "finished" state, but that has more to do with Matrix being young, the spec still needing work (although it's come a long way recently), and the lack of time and resources to complete such a big project i…

Is the Ruma project still alive? I liked your website and your goals but last I checked there was very little activity.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#119

Post by paulcarroty »

MattJ100 wrote: post #85
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…

Plenty of us are still working on XMPP, and there are thousands of XMPP servers and many more users on the network. It's true that since the original Jabber project began in 1999 there was a vision of giving users freedom of software and service, yet that vision is still nowhere near reality in 2019. But we are still an active community and still work towards that vision. XMPP is not dead. Unfortunately Pidgin and Ad…

> and there are thousands of XMPP servers

proof please. Checked the top 3-4 xmpp servers last summer and they almost died.

IRC looks 1000000x more active.

Re: Matrix 1.0 – Are We Ready Yet?

#120

Post by Ntrails »

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…

I still use pidgin for my "eve online chats" and it continues to do all the things I need pretty effectively. I've had a couple of slacks and a couple of discords over the years and they really haven't improved on many axes at all.
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