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The Matrix Space Beta

matrix.org

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Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#41

Post by ajayyy »

viccuad wrote: post #36
sneak wrote: post #27

Do the Matrix clients still phone-home to some centralized server (Vector, I think it's called) as well as to matrix.org on every launch? That's what kept me from switching last time; to me a federation client that's going to phone home to a central server is no better from a privacy standpoint than using Signal (which isn't federated but is also end to end encrypted and phones home to its centralized server), and Si…

> Do the Matrix clients still phone-home to some centralized server (Vector, I think it's called) There's no centralized server. There's a server with the majority of users for now (in matrix.org), but the network is decentralized, with many servers. The server implementation run by the majority is called Synapse, but there are others (Dentrite, Conduit, Construct..). I'm puzzled by this comment. Can you elaborate on…

They could be referring to the vector identity server for email/phone number -> matrix matching. I believe this is enabled by default on synapse installations (self-hosted ones too), but the URL can be changed in the config.

https://matrix.org/legal/identity-server-privacy-notice-1

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#42

Post by sneak »

viccuad wrote: post #36
sneak wrote: post #27

Do the Matrix clients still phone-home to some centralized server (Vector, I think it's called) as well as to matrix.org on every launch? That's what kept me from switching last time; to me a federation client that's going to phone home to a central server is no better from a privacy standpoint than using Signal (which isn't federated but is also end to end encrypted and phones home to its centralized server), and Si…

> Do the Matrix clients still phone-home to some centralized server (Vector, I think it's called) There's no centralized server. There's a server with the majority of users for now (in matrix.org), but the network is decentralized, with many servers. The server implementation run by the majority is called Synapse, but there are others (Dentrite, Conduit, Construct..). I'm puzzled by this comment. Can you elaborate on…

> I'm puzzled by this comment. Can you elaborate on what you mean by phoning home?

On first launch, it connects to multiple centralized servers before you have a chance to select your homeserver.

The issue was with the default client, in the default config.

Not sure if it's still happening, but it was concerning enough that it happened in the first place.

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/13942

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/12712

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/11655

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/11655#issuec...

It would also appear that it intends to maintain a Solarwinds-style remote code execution vulnerability on the machine on which it is installed:

https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/11655#issuec...

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#43

Post by xyst »

smbv wrote: post #9

Once this becomes widespread, I can actually start using Matrix as a real Discord / Slack alternative (communities just weren't cutting it, unfortunately).

I would love to ditch slack/discord for matrix. Unfortunately many communities are reluctant to maintain a bridge

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#44

Post by vlmutolo »

Arathorn wrote: post #18
capableweb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely check out Zulip for a pretty sweet threaded model also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27149123

Matrix’s threading model has been designed to support Zulip (we’ve chatted a bunch to Tim about linking them up) - the only catch is that it’s not implemented in any clients other than Cerulean so far. Element should add support soon now Spaces are out though.

What's the Matrix analog for Zulip? My understanding of Zulip is that you have an instance, streams in that instance, and topics in that stream.

Maybe in Matrix the hierarchy would be implemented by nested spaces? A space for the stream and one for each topic? That would probably work if not for the critical Zulip feature of being able to move messages between topics (and between streams?) to better organize the conversation.

Maybe one Zulip instance is a giant Matrix room and the threading model that's landing soon is used to implement the relationships? I know the upcoming threading model can dynamically change event relationships. But then maybe it would be better to avoid giving single rooms that much traffic.

There are probably lots of ways to implement that functionality. I'm curious as to what you were thinking.

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#45

Post by vlmutolo »

danShumway wrote: post #30

Pretty exciting stuff, still trying to wrap my head around some of the technical possibilities outside of chat. Just to be clear, a room can be contained in multiple spaces, right? Or even, if I'm understanding it correctly, in multiple places in a hierarchy in the same space? The Element blog post talks about setting up admin spaces and community spaces. So if rooms aren't exclusive to a single space I could build c…

There are lots of different things you can do with Spaces. But yes, you can build your own Space out of arbitrary rooms you don't own without anyone's permission.

Then there are what you might call "canonical" spaces, where space A labels space B as its child, and B labels A as its parent. Then you know that the relationship between the two is mutual, and clients can take that into account.

But you're free to create your own Spaces that are the parents of other rooms, where those rooms/spaces are unaware of the Space you created.

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#46

Post by AnonC »

I looked at this post and the user facing blog post, but I’m not sure if I’ve understood this. Is it just a way to organize different rooms together for easy access (like Telegram’s folders, which is just for each person, but here these can also be shared with others)? If yes, then can someone please point to similar implementations (preferably with screenshots) on other platforms for comparison and where the similarities and differences lie?

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#47

Post by ptman »

AnonC wrote: post #46

I looked at this post and the user facing blog post, but I’m not sure if I’ve understood this. Is it just a way to organize different rooms together for easy access (like Telegram’s folders, which is just for each person, but here these can also be shared with others)? If yes, then can someone please point to similar implementations (preferably with screenshots) on other platforms for comparison and where the similar…

discord servers/guilds, slack teams

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#49

Post by Arathorn »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #38
Arathorn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To build an open source decentralised Discord alternative you need a tool-box of primitives - that’s what Matrix is. Then clients like Element ( https://element.io ) sit on top to fill in the rest. We don’t think the model for Spaces is overcomplicated. In fact it’s simpler than Discord (no role-based permissions; just power levels).

Power levels feels like the most IRC answer possible, and breaks down as soon you want mutually exclusive abilities. Why is this the preferred model?

Because the decentralised ACL implementation (state resolution) relies on power levels as a simple comparator for determining merge conflict resolution. State resolution is the academically novel bit of Matrix and hard to get right, and while we can swap it out for role based ACLs in future, this is orthogonal to Spaces. Meanwhile it honestly hasn’t come up as a requirement, even from enterprisey folks, given we push power levels as hard as possible.

https://matrix.org/docs/guides/implementing-stateres and https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/16/matrix-decomposition-an-i... give more info on how state res works and why you wouldn’t rush to jump to role based ACLs.

It’s nothing whatsoever to do with IRC or chanserv style behaviour, beyond coincidence.

Re: The Matrix Space Beta

#50

Post by Arathorn »

vlmutolo wrote: post #44
Arathorn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix’s threading model has been designed to support Zulip (we’ve chatted a bunch to Tim about linking them up) - the only catch is that it’s not implemented in any clients other than Cerulean so far. Element should add support soon now Spaces are out though.

What's the Matrix analog for Zulip? My understanding of Zulip is that you have an instance, streams in that instance, and topics in that stream. Maybe in Matrix the hierarchy would be implemented by nested spaces? A space for the stream and one for each topic? That would probably work if not for the critical Zulip feature of being able to move messages between topics (and between streams?) to better organize the conv…

https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/18/introducing-cerulean has some details - and https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2326 and https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2836 are the two spec proposals underlying it.
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