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Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

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Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#111

Post by vitonsky »

Arathorn wrote: post #108
vitonsky wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, as i wrote in issue title and explained twice in this thread, the problem is bot SDK does not support encryption. It must work by default, for "privacy focused" application. Chat with no encryption must be an option, not default. Matrix protocol is over-complicated, as consequence any SDK and even clients are over-complicated too, that eventually makes any interaction with Matrix is difficult, unpleasant, and err…

matrix-bot-sdk does support encryption: https://turt2live.github.io/matrix-bot-sdk/tutorial-encrypti...

Check discussion in GitHub issue https://github.com/turt2live/matrix-bot-sdk/issues/363

Quote > Decryption of messages in encrypted rooms always end with error `Error: Can't find the room key to decrypt the event`

Maintainer action is "turt2live closed this as not planned on May 10, 2024"

It's all you need to know about a goals of Matrix and its success.

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#112

Post by AAAAaccountAAAA »

Arathorn wrote: post #110
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> thanks to governmental Matrix deals often going to system integrators who win contracts with Element's FOSS software and then don't contribute any $ back to Element Are they contributing code? Money (explicitly to a single specific entity, especially) is hardly the only way to support something.

France has contributed back some code in lieu of money, but it’s a very mixed blessing given we then have to maintain that code, which costs way more in the long term than writing it in the first place. It also actively damages the braintrust of the team if Element has to let staff go because we can’t pay them, and get code instead (as happened with France).

If those contributions are more a liability than an asset, why not reject them?

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#113

Post by Arathorn »

AAAAaccountAAAA wrote: post #112
Arathorn wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has contributed back some code in lieu of money, but it’s a very mixed blessing given we then have to maintain that code, which costs way more in the long term than writing it in the first place. It also actively damages the braintrust of the team if Element has to let staff go because we can’t pay them, and get code instead (as happened with France).

If those contributions are more a liability than an asset, why not reject them?

We do, in some instances

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#114

Post by ezst »

xorcist wrote: post #22
Takennickname wrote: post #8

I said most of the same things in the Matrix foundation's server. The general response from the team was: "Pay money or shut up and accept what we give you". The number of gigantic changes in direction this project has had in the past couple of years is enough to sink any project. Jitsi to Webrtc, complete change in auth system, Element to Element X. There's two clients. One that's fast, and one that's full featured.…

For the past decade or so, I have used Conversations on mobile and Gajim on desktop. Seems to work fine with a minimum of work. What am I missing?

As someone in the exact same boat as you (a happy XMPP user for 10+ years, with family and friends there), if I had to name one, it would be group calls and overall calls being supported in Gajim. We just hyperlink to jitsi meet whenever the need arises, not a big deal at all.

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#115

Post by ezst »

usr1106 wrote: post #64
attendant3446 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Delta Chat? I like the concept, but I can't convince anyone to sign up to test it out :(

The best chat system for geeks is zulip. Messages threaded, everything markdown. very efficient use of screen estate. For less geeky use I indeed have had Delta on my list for years. Haven't really tried yet myself, not to speak about convincing.

People keep hammering zulip as the example of threads done right. I disagree. They are practically indistinguishable from rooms, in looks and behaviour. It's not like zulip is offering a better abstraction/isolation level: you end-up with just as many threads, as much (in)convenience dealing with them, and the exact same caveats (there's no known solution to people writing out of thread, so the cognitive load is still worse - IMO/E - than "no threading at all").

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#116

Post by ezst »

_lvbh wrote: post #7

I'm of the same stance. I've been using Matrix for 3 years now, primarily to communicate with family located where there is high censorship and most messengers are blocked. Probably due to the complexity of the system and inherent design, performance is horrible. Good enough for usage but just unpleasant. Their new Element X client is meant to solve a lot of problems but they're starting to deviate from common standa…

> primarily to communicate with family located where there is high censorship and most messengers are blocked

I was travelling frequently through Asia and the Middle East around a decade ago. I wanted a platform that just works, that is low on resources, that I can self-host, that I can "disguise" itself as something else when needed (run behind a different port, or IP, over ToR, etc).

Matrix was new then, and promising to right every wrong from previous protocols (mild exaggeration). I bought into the hype, and got burnt by it, finally settled with XMPP (which Matrix had told me wasn't adequate), and stayed there to this day because when Matrix really didn't go anywhere since, XMPP kept getting better and better. That would be my recommendation to you.

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#117

Post by ezst »

Arathorn wrote: post #58
_lvbh wrote: post #7

I'm of the same stance. I've been using Matrix for 3 years now, primarily to communicate with family located where there is high censorship and most messengers are blocked. Probably due to the complexity of the system and inherent design, performance is horrible. Good enough for usage but just unpleasant. Their new Element X client is meant to solve a lot of problems but they're starting to deviate from common standa…

It’s depressing to hear that you’ve given up on Element X, given that’s where all the work has been going, including ensuring the encryption is rock solid. Element Call is still webrtc; the fact it’s direct calling to a SFU rather than needing TURN for firewall traversal should be a good thing. How did you try to set it up? I did a basic walk through at https://github.com/element-hq/element-docker-demo in case that h…

It's depressing to be told that we can pick between a moribund client and one that's barely usable, indeed.

Element X is a mess. You can make it look good in comparison to the previous one on a "checkbox" basis like you just did, but it's clunky, buggy, and so unappealing that I don't see myself recommending it to anyone. Even tech nerds can't stand it any longer, which was the premise of this post.

Yup, I get it, you are emotionally involved in all of this, and criticism hurts, but the only way "blaming it on the users" ends, is with no users left at all.

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#118

Post by ezst »

kniffy wrote: post #62

I want to like matrix, but I had to give up my homeserver. For reasons that are unclear to me I was added to the matrix.org homeserver blacklist, with no communication on why or response to my asking why. Eventually I noticed some issue with the database, it having grown many hundreds of GB (something about my users being stuck in matrix.org rooms that they're blacklisted from, I guess) so I rm -rf'd it and that's th…

Could it be that your needs would be covered by XMPP? You can run that on a RPi in a shoebox.

Re: Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org

#119

Post by ezst »

blfr wrote: post #15

I find Signal just unbeatable on all fronts: security, UX, ease of use, general thoughtfulness put into the product. It has the best simple media editor (for video clipping, blurring faces, compressing) I have ever seen casually built into the sending flow. Every time I use anything, from MS Teams to Whatsapp, I find myself wishing they were more like Signal.

For me Signal is not an option. Any pretty promise can be broken on a whim in the same fashion Facebook acquired WhatsApp and could then do whatever they wanted with it. Any pretence of user-friendliness has been defeated when Signal started pushing their crypto and bar their users from using an alternative client. Centralised services are problematic by design, and almost always abusive.
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