25 ms·

France Enters the Matrix

389 points by l2dy 8y ago

Forbo 8y ago
I finally got around to brushing off the year's worth of dust that had accumulated on my Matrix account and signed in to Riot on my phone, as well as their web client. I was pretty pleased with how easy it was to connect to a Freenode channel. So far it seems to be a decent experience, I'm looking forward to using it over the next little bit.
aboutruby 8y ago
The FOSDEM video: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/
pmoriarty 8y ago
I haven't tried Matrix yet, but I've tried some other chat platforms like Telegram and Discord, and was really disappointed with them compared to IRC. I had to use their closed-source, bloated, binary blob GUI clients, couldn't logs the channels I was in (and so relied on having to log in to their servers to get backlogs, which was super annoying), and needed invites to get in to channels. Apart from the superior multimedia capabilities of these clients, I saw absolutely no advantage of them over IRC clients (which could do useful things like logs all mentioned URLs and mentions of my nick to separate, logged tabs, and which I could run from the terminal and even from within Emacs). I really hope Matrix is better in this regard, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but so far attempts to create next generation chat services have been really underwhelming.
- im3w1l 8y ago
  I find it compares favorably to IRC and XMPP. File transfers and offline messages and encryption "just working" without having to check if my client, other persons client and the server(s) support it (or having to bring helpers into the mix) is worth a lot.
  - ubercow13 8y ago
    Except you do have to check, as almost no clients support encryption fully.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  using matrix via weechat using the new python weechat-matrix (https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix) plugin should give a very convincing IRC on steroids experience; it even has e2e encryption landing. The emacs matrix client (mclient.el) is also in active dev again. Riot is also good, but probably too bloated for your tastes :)
  - cyphar 8y ago
    It's a shame that the Matrix website listing clients[1] don't mention weechat-matrix and instead mentions the outdated Lua plugin[2] that doesn't support Megolm at all. I've been using Riot for a few years and it's nice, but it would've been nice to know that there is a modern Weechat plugin implementation (I was half considering writing one myself). It's also super neat to see that they wrote their own Python Matrix client library[3], which is something I also needed for another idea I'm working on (the library linked to from the Matrix site also seems to be less suitable than this one). [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now [2]: https://github.com/torhve/weechat-matrix-protocol-script https://github.com/torhve/weechat-matrix-protocol-script [3]: https://github.com/poljar/matrix-nio https://github.com/poljar/matrix-nio
    - acemarke 8y ago
      Looking over the list of Matrix-related projects [0], what I'm finding a bit concerning is that only one of the server implementations (the official Synapse codebase) appears to be anywhere close to production-ready. All the others look like they're either abandoned experiments, or barely in early dev (Dendrite). The feature blurbs and API specs make it sound relevant to a project I'll be working on, but I'm concerned that there's only one viable-ish server implementation. I'd feel a lot better if there were several valid working servers in various languages by now. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now
      - zanny 8y ago
        The Rust server isn't dead at all, the maintainer is active but not proceeding until async / await is fully stabilized.
- crummy 8y ago
  I don't think you need to use binary blog GUI clients for Telegram. Here's the source to many clients: https://github.com/TelegramOrg https://github.com/TelegramOrg
- ishitatsuyuki 8y ago
  While most of your complaints is valid for Discord, it doesn't hold for Telegram, which IMO has high quality clients, in terms of native look&feel, lightweight, and general UX. Matrix on the other hand is like having everything half-baked. This made it an non-option for daily use and I ended up moving to other IMs and a bouncer for IRC.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    you may be surprised at how much it's improved in Riot 1.0, but ymmv :)
- elvecinodeabajo 8y ago
  Matrix is totally open sourced. Server side and the official client (Riot) can be deployed anywhere under your own control. Also, deploying a bridge you can connect Matrix and IRC rooms, creating a hybrid channel mixing Matrix and IRC clients in the same room. It's pretty cool.
O1111OOO 8y ago
In my small bubble of tech news, France has popped up a few times. Found out recently that they are officially[0] using the privacy-respecting Qwant search engine. Several weeks ago, I learned that they have planned obsolescence laws[1] which makes them a pioneer in this area (from what I understand). There's also an active non-profit organization using FOSS to create alternative, privacy-respecting, solutions to Google products (framasoft[2]). I mention this last one because I haven't come across a similar major undertaking (or similar mindset) in too many other countries. Now they are evaluating Matrix for their communications needs. I can understand the importance of countries, nowadays, not relying too much on the services of companies tied to a specific country (namely the US) but I wonder what else is different about France? What else are they engaged in re: FOSS, privacy? Or am I reading too much into this? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378 [2] https://framasoft.org/en/ https://framasoft.org/en/
- on_and_off 8y ago
  The gendarmes have also switched to linux. IIRC, the main reason was that is is cheaper.
  - adev_ 8y ago
    Outside of costs, an army / police using a foreign-develop proprietary operating system for their everyday internal need is insane.
    - alexis_fr 8y ago
      I always wonder why foreign countries by the French Rafale. Same problem: What can we trust from a foreign entity?
      - seszett 8y ago
        It's a slightly different problem as those countries that buy the Rafale do so because they don't have (or aren't willing to develop) the means to build their own planes. So to them it's mostly a matter of choosing which foreign entity to trust and at which cost, between the US, Russia, China, France, and a handful of other states with lower performing but cheaper equipment.
xvilka 8y ago
I wish they stop wasting time by developing this Electron abomination and focus more on the native and mobile clients.
- tacoman 8y ago
  Riot-web is a really nice app. Drop it on any web server and you're done. I use it all day long to talk to my family on a self-hosted, non-federated matrix instance. If you use linux, Fractal is a pretty good option for a desktop application. The latest release is "beta" but very usable. https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fractal.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fractal.html
  - Nerada 8y ago
    Curious if there was a reason you chose to self-host as opposed to using a public one on just starting your own room (I assume this is possible in the same way channels are in IRC)? What was the drive to use 1, self-host and non-federate an instance of Matrix over another platform, and 2, why? With family especially, I would assume a simple WhatsApp/Signal group would have been easier for adoption.
    - tacoman 8y ago
      My extended family of 16 which ranges in age from 5 to 85 uses this Matrix instance. We didn't want pictures of our young kids on Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. These young kids and grandparents don't have smartphones so Signal isn't an option. Also, many of us access Matrix on other devices and computers other than phones. This is how the internet is supposed to be.
      - Nerada 8y ago
        Thanks. I've been tossing up setting up a forum of sorts for some close friends, but I've been going back and forth on the two extremes; an obscure telnet-only accessible BBS for the nostalgia, or a Matrix/Riot page for the ease of use.
  - 8y ago
zamalek 8y ago
> Because Matrix is inherently decentralized, no single server "owns" the conversations; all traffic is replicated across all of the involved servers. [...] Matrix is more like Git than XMPP, SIP, IRC, or many other traditional communication protocols. The Matrix protocol is well worth the read. JSON-LD is a bit of a nightmare to work with, but the gist of it is a solid concept; it has drastically changed my approach to software design.
- acemarke 8y ago
  I'm considering evaluating Matrix for some upcoming projects I'll be working on. Thus far I've just skimmed the front page and the FAQ. Could you expand on what you found particularly compelling about the protocol / API, and also how that's changed your software development approach?
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    One problem with upvoting comments instead of saying “+1” is the parent can’t see your upvote. But I’d like to explicitly say: I am also very interested in the answer to this question, if you have the time.
  - zamalek 8y ago
    It federates itself like SMTP does, I guess? If you translate and rotate their solution (abstractly speaking) you arrive at some very interesting ways to create a federated website/app/thing. Inspiration is always a really hard thing to nail down. From a technical standpoint, there are six specifications (Matrix, Mastodon, XMPP, SIP, SMTP, Microdata) that have gotten the "future of the internet" partially right, in my opinion. Some union of the them, excluding the unfortunate bits, is likely the email/Twitter/Facebook/what-have-you killer. Putting that in consumers' hands and getting them to use it is another story, but we do have the starts of a technical/back-end answer. For example, you could embed text document edits inside of Matrix messages as Microdata (ignorantly spamming someone aside with thousands of character edits aside). Is your spouse doing their taxes? Send them a chat message with Microdata explaining to the form where the attached document goes. As a general goalpost, WeChat (having circumvented federation problems) in China is a really great example. You can pay for food at a hotdog stand on the street with chat. Uber merely facilitates communication between taxis and commuters. Whatever the project(s) you are referring to, software usually ends up solving communication problems. Recursively simplify your problem, ultimately realize how communication fits into it, then work your way back up to your initial idea. Federated IM is ludicrously powerful and, especially with graceful degradation, can lead to some sales leads.
sublupo 8y ago
Recently I'm hearing more about Matrix. Does anyone have any input as to the pros and cons of Matrix vs xmpp?
- fyfy18 8y ago
  It's quite subjective, but my view is Matrix is what XMPP would like if it was written today. The main advantages are it is using JSON instead of XML, and HTTP instead of custom protocols so it can work directly from browsers and with lightweight mobile clients. It also has a lot built into the core protocol, where as to get XMPP to do anything useful you will need to use a lot of extensions (and ensure the server and all clients support them). The only con is it's still a relatively young project. I'm not sure I would want to rely on it as my main form of communication in a company just yet, but for personal usage it is fine.
  - jauco 8y ago
    I might be mistaken, but from what I read the main addition is that all peers replicate the full state. If you have a dominant xmpp server (like gmail was) that removes xmpp support, its users have the start using other clients to connect to it or start a new social structure from scratch. In essence this makes the xmpp server a dominant player with leverage. If gmail had used matrix when it pulled the plug all interactions (who knows who, how to route traffic, chat history) would have been replicated at the peers so it would just have removed google’s servers from the equation. The people who had been using it would continue uninterrupted.
    - Squithrilve 8y ago
      > The people who had been using it would continue uninterrupted. I'm not sure about that. If the main matrix server disappeared today that'd be problematic. Yes, you'd have history locally but the same can be said for any native client that stores history locally. As far as I know there is no way to migrate matrix history now. Is there? (genuinely curious)
      - 8y ago
birracerveza 8y ago
I like the idea behind Matrix, but hosting it is really a pain. I've given up on it until it's a simple `docker-compose up -d` away from running a full instance. To get back on topic, France has really got its FOSS movement moving. There are a TON of Mastodon and Peertube instances located there. It's admirable.
- omnimus 8y ago
  I dont know... i have been runing one instance for about 3 years and it is just apt install matrix-synapse and changing one yaml config to suit my needs i am sure there is a dockerized version
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    How much RAM does it require for 1-2 users? I have small VPS and can afford 10-20 MB of RAM, but Python terrifies me.
    - Arathorn 8y ago
      the RAM usage depends on the size of rooms the users join, not the number of users. synapse typically takes around 1GB of RAM (allocate 2 to be safe), but we are working on that.
      - wbxrs 8y ago
        2 GB of RAM for a chat server?!!?
        staz 8y ago
        From what I've heard here from people using the Slack desktop client, 2GB is now normal for a chat client
        wbxrs 8y ago
        I think it is perfectly reasonable for a client to use more RAM than a server, having to display a GUI and all. I'm thinking of IRC servers vs. clients. (Certainly not 2 GB, but that's another matter.)
fermigier 8y ago
Things are still going strong for open source in France (despite de occasional setbacks) since France was rated in 2008 the no 1 country in the world in terms of open source adoption by Georgiatech: https://web.archive.org/web/20090424052832/http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090424052832/http://www.redhat... https://web.archive.org/web/20090520231136/http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/OSSI_Research.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20090520231136/http://www.redhat... More info (in French): https://cnll.fr/media/etude-2017.pdf https://cnll.fr/media/etude-2017.pdf (with figures for the FR, DE, UK and rest of EU markets on slide 4).
MayeulC 8y ago
Matthew's talk at FOSDEM [0] was really nice. I've been using Matrix (mainly trough Riot) for a while, and encouraged my technically-minded friends to jump on it. However, I would like to get my family to use something else than WhatsApp (which I refuse to use). I'm planning to do so, once I can sort out the following: - Riot is nice if you have a lot of high-density rooms (Fractal's "Banquet" use-case [1]), but not really there in terms of UX for small rooms with my family members - I would like to self-host if possible. However, I need to ensure that the server is reliable enough, and synapse seems to be quite resource-hungry. Regarding the first issue, it seems that France's Tchap would solve it nicely, from what we were shown at FOSDEM. Unfortunately, the Readme in their repo is still Riot's, and it would seem that I have to build it myself [2]. I'll look a bit more into that nevertheless, and it should improve by June, from the article. Regarding the second one, someone recently linked to this Gnome mailing list archive [3] where (in the reply) Matthew details a bit more his (then) long-terms plans for homeservers. Having one homeserver per device would solve most of my issues pretty neatly. I am not sure how far it is in the roadmap. I am also curious to know what's the status on that specific discussion topic: I was discussing just this the otherday on #postmarketos-offtopic:matrix.org [4]. I was interested in having a unique matrix daemon on a phone operating system to provide push support, maybe as well as a Matrix protocol broker. Otherwise, for self-hosting with ~10-200 users, it looks like synapse has shed a lot of weight recently, and other homeservers implementations seem to be picking up steam, so we'll see how that goes. I am not sure how synapse would handle a dynamic IP For now, my gripes with the ecosystem are the following: - There doesn't seem to be easy ways of migrating: accounts, homeservers (including address and implementation, ex. migrating to/from synapse, Dendrite, Ruma...). - No easy way to manage multiple identities: work, home, etc. Multi-account clients or community-bound identities could probably help solve this. Ideally, it would be the later, and my account would be on multiple homeservers (backup plan for availability). - The search functionality is really lacking on most clients. No way to search my own messages, or at a specific time, in a specific community, etc. It's also kind of fun to have both COI (chat over IMAP) and Matrix making the front page at the same time :) [0]: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ [1]: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/05/16/banquets-and-barbecues/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/05/16/banquets-and-bar... [2]: https://github.com/dinsic-pim/tchap-android https://github.com/dinsic-pim/tchap-android [3]: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2017-September/msg00047.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2017-Sept... [4]: https://matrix.to/#/!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org/$15496441549459ctuml:librepush.net?via=fam-ribbers.com&via=matrix.org&via=disroot.org https://matrix.to/#/!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org/$15496441... A bit off-topic, but my registrar doesn't provide an API to update the DNS records on their servers. As a workaround, would there be a free dynamic DNS with an API out there? I don't care what the address would look like, as I would just use it as a CNAME record.
wcoenen 8y ago
> the 0.99 version of the home server code is ACME-capable and can get a certificate directly from Let's Encrypt; How does this work? I assume a home server doesn't have a public DNS name, so what is used as the subject of the certificate then?
- ypolito 8y ago
  DNS is required for wildcard domains. To issue a certificate for a specific subdomain, you just need to have an http server and serve the secret under the .well-known directory.
- detaro 8y ago
  "home server" is the term for the server your account lives on in Matrix, not for "server you run at home", although you can of course do that.
- packet_nerd 8y ago
  The federation requires a publicly accessible server to work. I got a cheap domain name, pointed it to my public IP (with DDNS), and port-forwarded to my server. Works fine for me.
Andrew_nenakhov 8y ago
The only advantage Matrix currently has comes from it's relative obscurity. It has ONE implementation. Once things start inevitably emerge, it'll run into all the same problems that truly distributed protocols have.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  it's true that there's only one implementation that's production ready. however, there are several which work sufficiently that they can federate with it (dendrite, construct) which look to be on the right path. it'll be interesting to see if that all falls apart when they come of age; let's see :)
qwerty456127 8y ago
Does it support conversation trees like we do here on HN? Does it let you edit your messages?
- Arathorn 8y ago
  no, threading isn't there yet. editing isn't either, but coming soon (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1849 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1849)
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    This probably is my own problem but I totally hate threadless communication for whatever that goes beyond a personal chat for 2 people. IMHO every meaningful collaboration needs threads.
denart2203 8y ago
Is anyone else increasingly uncomfortable with the "we'll solve the certificate problem by deferring to centralized registrars that surely keep their keys private from state actors." I mean, this is potentially not a risk if there is a recognizable way of communicating low-bandwidth fingerprints of the next encryption level, like ZRTP verification on voice. But note how WebRTC has done the same thing? And efforts to solve the problem are talked about and then, somehow, nothing ever happens with the standards. It's enough to drive one paranoid.

389 points by l2dy 8y ago

I finally got around to brushing off the year's worth of dust that had accumulated on my Matrix account and signed in to Riot on my phone, as well as their web client. I was pretty pleased with how easy it was to connect to a Freenode channel. So far it seems to be a decent experience, I'm looking forward to using it over the next little bit.

aboutruby 8y ago

The FOSDEM video: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/

pmoriarty 8y ago

I haven't tried Matrix yet, but I've tried some other chat platforms like Telegram and Discord, and was really disappointed with them compared to IRC. I had to use their closed-source, bloated, binary blob GUI clients, couldn't logs the channels I was in (and so relied on having to log in to their servers to get backlogs, which was super annoying), and needed invites to get in to channels. Apart from the superior multimedia capabilities of these clients, I saw absolutely no advantage of them over IRC clients (which could do useful things like logs all mentioned URLs and mentions of my nick to separate, logged tabs, and which I could run from the terminal and even from within Emacs). I really hope Matrix is better in this regard, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but so far attempts to create next generation chat services have been really underwhelming.

im3w1l 8y ago
I find it compares favorably to IRC and XMPP. File transfers and offline messages and encryption "just working" without having to check if my client, other persons client and the server(s) support it (or having to bring helpers into the mix) is worth a lot.
- ubercow13 8y ago
  Except you do have to check, as almost no clients support encryption fully.
Arathorn 8y ago
using matrix via weechat using the new python weechat-matrix (https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix) plugin should give a very convincing IRC on steroids experience; it even has e2e encryption landing. The emacs matrix client (mclient.el) is also in active dev again. Riot is also good, but probably too bloated for your tastes :)
- cyphar 8y ago
  It's a shame that the Matrix website listing clients[1] don't mention weechat-matrix and instead mentions the outdated Lua plugin[2] that doesn't support Megolm at all. I've been using Riot for a few years and it's nice, but it would've been nice to know that there is a modern Weechat plugin implementation (I was half considering writing one myself). It's also super neat to see that they wrote their own Python Matrix client library[3], which is something I also needed for another idea I'm working on (the library linked to from the Matrix site also seems to be less suitable than this one). [1]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now [2]: https://github.com/torhve/weechat-matrix-protocol-script https://github.com/torhve/weechat-matrix-protocol-script [3]: https://github.com/poljar/matrix-nio https://github.com/poljar/matrix-nio
  - acemarke 8y ago
    Looking over the list of Matrix-related projects [0], what I'm finding a bit concerning is that only one of the server implementations (the official Synapse codebase) appears to be anywhere close to production-ready. All the others look like they're either abandoned experiments, or barely in early dev (Dendrite). The feature blurbs and API specs make it sound relevant to a project I'll be working on, but I'm concerned that there's only one viable-ish server implementation. I'd feel a lot better if there were several valid working servers in various languages by now. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now
    - zanny 8y ago
      The Rust server isn't dead at all, the maintainer is active but not proceeding until async / await is fully stabilized.
crummy 8y ago
I don't think you need to use binary blog GUI clients for Telegram. Here's the source to many clients: https://github.com/TelegramOrg https://github.com/TelegramOrg
ishitatsuyuki 8y ago
While most of your complaints is valid for Discord, it doesn't hold for Telegram, which IMO has high quality clients, in terms of native look&feel, lightweight, and general UX. Matrix on the other hand is like having everything half-baked. This made it an non-option for daily use and I ended up moving to other IMs and a bouncer for IRC.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  you may be surprised at how much it's improved in Riot 1.0, but ymmv :)
elvecinodeabajo 8y ago
Matrix is totally open sourced. Server side and the official client (Riot) can be deployed anywhere under your own control. Also, deploying a bridge you can connect Matrix and IRC rooms, creating a hybrid channel mixing Matrix and IRC clients in the same room. It's pretty cool.

O1111OOO 8y ago

In my small bubble of tech news, France has popped up a few times. Found out recently that they are officially[0] using the privacy-respecting Qwant search engine. Several weeks ago, I learned that they have planned obsolescence laws[1] which makes them a pioneer in this area (from what I understand). There's also an active non-profit organization using FOSS to create alternative, privacy-respecting, solutions to Google products (framasoft[2]). I mention this last one because I haven't come across a similar major undertaking (or similar mindset) in too many other countries. Now they are evaluating Matrix for their communications needs. I can understand the importance of countries, nowadays, not relying too much on the services of companies tied to a specific country (namely the US) but I wonder what else is different about France? What else are they engaged in re: FOSS, privacy? Or am I reading too much into this? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwant [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42615378 [2] https://framasoft.org/en/ https://framasoft.org/en/

on_and_off 8y ago
The gendarmes have also switched to linux. IIRC, the main reason was that is is cheaper.
- adev_ 8y ago
  Outside of costs, an army / police using a foreign-develop proprietary operating system for their everyday internal need is insane.
  - alexis_fr 8y ago
    I always wonder why foreign countries by the French Rafale. Same problem: What can we trust from a foreign entity?
    - seszett 8y ago
      It's a slightly different problem as those countries that buy the Rafale do so because they don't have (or aren't willing to develop) the means to build their own planes. So to them it's mostly a matter of choosing which foreign entity to trust and at which cost, between the US, Russia, China, France, and a handful of other states with lower performing but cheaper equipment.

xvilka 8y ago

I wish they stop wasting time by developing this Electron abomination and focus more on the native and mobile clients.

tacoman 8y ago
Riot-web is a really nice app. Drop it on any web server and you're done. I use it all day long to talk to my family on a self-hosted, non-federated matrix instance. If you use linux, Fractal is a pretty good option for a desktop application. The latest release is "beta" but very usable. https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fractal.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fractal.html
- Nerada 8y ago
  Curious if there was a reason you chose to self-host as opposed to using a public one on just starting your own room (I assume this is possible in the same way channels are in IRC)? What was the drive to use 1, self-host and non-federate an instance of Matrix over another platform, and 2, why? With family especially, I would assume a simple WhatsApp/Signal group would have been easier for adoption.
  - tacoman 8y ago
    My extended family of 16 which ranges in age from 5 to 85 uses this Matrix instance. We didn't want pictures of our young kids on Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. These young kids and grandparents don't have smartphones so Signal isn't an option. Also, many of us access Matrix on other devices and computers other than phones. This is how the internet is supposed to be.
    - Nerada 8y ago
      Thanks. I've been tossing up setting up a forum of sorts for some close friends, but I've been going back and forth on the two extremes; an obscure telnet-only accessible BBS for the nostalgia, or a Matrix/Riot page for the ease of use.
- 8y ago

zamalek 8y ago

> Because Matrix is inherently decentralized, no single server "owns" the conversations; all traffic is replicated across all of the involved servers. [...] Matrix is more like Git than XMPP, SIP, IRC, or many other traditional communication protocols. The Matrix protocol is well worth the read. JSON-LD is a bit of a nightmare to work with, but the gist of it is a solid concept; it has drastically changed my approach to software design.

acemarke 8y ago
I'm considering evaluating Matrix for some upcoming projects I'll be working on. Thus far I've just skimmed the front page and the FAQ. Could you expand on what you found particularly compelling about the protocol / API, and also how that's changed your software development approach?
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  One problem with upvoting comments instead of saying “+1” is the parent can’t see your upvote. But I’d like to explicitly say: I am also very interested in the answer to this question, if you have the time.
- zamalek 8y ago
  It federates itself like SMTP does, I guess? If you translate and rotate their solution (abstractly speaking) you arrive at some very interesting ways to create a federated website/app/thing. Inspiration is always a really hard thing to nail down. From a technical standpoint, there are six specifications (Matrix, Mastodon, XMPP, SIP, SMTP, Microdata) that have gotten the "future of the internet" partially right, in my opinion. Some union of the them, excluding the unfortunate bits, is likely the email/Twitter/Facebook/what-have-you killer. Putting that in consumers' hands and getting them to use it is another story, but we do have the starts of a technical/back-end answer. For example, you could embed text document edits inside of Matrix messages as Microdata (ignorantly spamming someone aside with thousands of character edits aside). Is your spouse doing their taxes? Send them a chat message with Microdata explaining to the form where the attached document goes. As a general goalpost, WeChat (having circumvented federation problems) in China is a really great example. You can pay for food at a hotdog stand on the street with chat. Uber merely facilitates communication between taxis and commuters. Whatever the project(s) you are referring to, software usually ends up solving communication problems. Recursively simplify your problem, ultimately realize how communication fits into it, then work your way back up to your initial idea. Federated IM is ludicrously powerful and, especially with graceful degradation, can lead to some sales leads.

sublupo 8y ago

Recently I'm hearing more about Matrix. Does anyone have any input as to the pros and cons of Matrix vs xmpp?

fyfy18 8y ago
It's quite subjective, but my view is Matrix is what XMPP would like if it was written today. The main advantages are it is using JSON instead of XML, and HTTP instead of custom protocols so it can work directly from browsers and with lightweight mobile clients. It also has a lot built into the core protocol, where as to get XMPP to do anything useful you will need to use a lot of extensions (and ensure the server and all clients support them). The only con is it's still a relatively young project. I'm not sure I would want to rely on it as my main form of communication in a company just yet, but for personal usage it is fine.
- jauco 8y ago
  I might be mistaken, but from what I read the main addition is that all peers replicate the full state. If you have a dominant xmpp server (like gmail was) that removes xmpp support, its users have the start using other clients to connect to it or start a new social structure from scratch. In essence this makes the xmpp server a dominant player with leverage. If gmail had used matrix when it pulled the plug all interactions (who knows who, how to route traffic, chat history) would have been replicated at the peers so it would just have removed google’s servers from the equation. The people who had been using it would continue uninterrupted.
  - Squithrilve 8y ago
    > The people who had been using it would continue uninterrupted. I'm not sure about that. If the main matrix server disappeared today that'd be problematic. Yes, you'd have history locally but the same can be said for any native client that stores history locally. As far as I know there is no way to migrate matrix history now. Is there? (genuinely curious)
    - 8y ago

birracerveza 8y ago

I like the idea behind Matrix, but hosting it is really a pain. I've given up on it until it's a simple `docker-compose up -d` away from running a full instance. To get back on topic, France has really got its FOSS movement moving. There are a TON of Mastodon and Peertube instances located there. It's admirable.

omnimus 8y ago
I dont know... i have been runing one instance for about 3 years and it is just apt install matrix-synapse and changing one yaml config to suit my needs i am sure there is a dockerized version
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  How much RAM does it require for 1-2 users? I have small VPS and can afford 10-20 MB of RAM, but Python terrifies me.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    the RAM usage depends on the size of rooms the users join, not the number of users. synapse typically takes around 1GB of RAM (allocate 2 to be safe), but we are working on that.
    - wbxrs 8y ago
      2 GB of RAM for a chat server?!!?
      - staz 8y ago
        From what I've heard here from people using the Slack desktop client, 2GB is now normal for a chat client
        wbxrs 8y ago
        I think it is perfectly reasonable for a client to use more RAM than a server, having to display a GUI and all. I'm thinking of IRC servers vs. clients. (Certainly not 2 GB, but that's another matter.)

fermigier 8y ago

Things are still going strong for open source in France (despite de occasional setbacks) since France was rated in 2008 the no 1 country in the world in terms of open source adoption by Georgiatech: https://web.archive.org/web/20090424052832/http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/ https://web.archive.org/web/20090424052832/http://www.redhat... https://web.archive.org/web/20090520231136/http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/OSSI_Research.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20090520231136/http://www.redhat... More info (in French): https://cnll.fr/media/etude-2017.pdf https://cnll.fr/media/etude-2017.pdf (with figures for the FR, DE, UK and rest of EU markets on slide 4).

MayeulC 8y ago

Matthew's talk at FOSDEM [0] was really nice. I've been using Matrix (mainly trough Riot) for a while, and encouraged my technically-minded friends to jump on it. However, I would like to get my family to use something else than WhatsApp (which I refuse to use). I'm planning to do so, once I can sort out the following: - Riot is nice if you have a lot of high-density rooms (Fractal's "Banquet" use-case [1]), but not really there in terms of UX for small rooms with my family members - I would like to self-host if possible. However, I need to ensure that the server is reliable enough, and synapse seems to be quite resource-hungry. Regarding the first issue, it seems that France's Tchap would solve it nicely, from what we were shown at FOSDEM. Unfortunately, the Readme in their repo is still Riot's, and it would seem that I have to build it myself [2]. I'll look a bit more into that nevertheless, and it should improve by June, from the article. Regarding the second one, someone recently linked to this Gnome mailing list archive [3] where (in the reply) Matthew details a bit more his (then) long-terms plans for homeservers. Having one homeserver per device would solve most of my issues pretty neatly. I am not sure how far it is in the roadmap. I am also curious to know what's the status on that specific discussion topic: I was discussing just this the otherday on #postmarketos-offtopic:matrix.org [4]. I was interested in having a unique matrix daemon on a phone operating system to provide push support, maybe as well as a Matrix protocol broker. Otherwise, for self-hosting with ~10-200 users, it looks like synapse has shed a lot of weight recently, and other homeservers implementations seem to be picking up steam, so we'll see how that goes. I am not sure how synapse would handle a dynamic IP For now, my gripes with the ecosystem are the following: - There doesn't seem to be easy ways of migrating: accounts, homeservers (including address and implementation, ex. migrating to/from synapse, Dendrite, Ruma...). - No easy way to manage multiple identities: work, home, etc. Multi-account clients or community-bound identities could probably help solve this. Ideally, it would be the later, and my account would be on multiple homeservers (backup plan for availability). - The search functionality is really lacking on most clients. No way to search my own messages, or at a specific time, in a specific community, etc. It's also kind of fun to have both COI (chat over IMAP) and Matrix making the front page at the same time :) [0]: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/matrix_french_state/ [1]: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/05/16/banquets-and-barbecues/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/05/16/banquets-and-bar... [2]: https://github.com/dinsic-pim/tchap-android https://github.com/dinsic-pim/tchap-android [3]: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2017-September/msg00047.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2017-Sept... [4]: https://matrix.to/#/!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org/$15496441549459ctuml:librepush.net?via=fam-ribbers.com&via=matrix.org&via=disroot.org https://matrix.to/#/!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org/$15496441... A bit off-topic, but my registrar doesn't provide an API to update the DNS records on their servers. As a workaround, would there be a free dynamic DNS with an API out there? I don't care what the address would look like, as I would just use it as a CNAME record.

wcoenen 8y ago

> the 0.99 version of the home server code is ACME-capable and can get a certificate directly from Let's Encrypt; How does this work? I assume a home server doesn't have a public DNS name, so what is used as the subject of the certificate then?

ypolito 8y ago
DNS is required for wildcard domains. To issue a certificate for a specific subdomain, you just need to have an http server and serve the secret under the .well-known directory.
detaro 8y ago
"home server" is the term for the server your account lives on in Matrix, not for "server you run at home", although you can of course do that.
packet_nerd 8y ago
The federation requires a publicly accessible server to work. I got a cheap domain name, pointed it to my public IP (with DDNS), and port-forwarded to my server. Works fine for me.

Andrew_nenakhov 8y ago

The only advantage Matrix currently has comes from it's relative obscurity. It has ONE implementation. Once things start inevitably emerge, it'll run into all the same problems that truly distributed protocols have.

Arathorn 8y ago
it's true that there's only one implementation that's production ready. however, there are several which work sufficiently that they can federate with it (dendrite, construct) which look to be on the right path. it'll be interesting to see if that all falls apart when they come of age; let's see :)

qwerty456127 8y ago

Does it support conversation trees like we do here on HN? Does it let you edit your messages?

Arathorn 8y ago
no, threading isn't there yet. editing isn't either, but coming soon (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1849 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1849)
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  This probably is my own problem but I totally hate threadless communication for whatever that goes beyond a personal chat for 2 people. IMHO every meaningful collaboration needs threads.

denart2203 8y ago

Is anyone else increasingly uncomfortable with the "we'll solve the certificate problem by deferring to centralized registrars that surely keep their keys private from state actors." I mean, this is potentially not a risk if there is a recognizable way of communicating low-bandwidth fingerprints of the next encryption level, like ZRTP verification on voice. But note how WebRTC has done the same thing? And efforts to solve the problem are talked about and then, somehow, nothing ever happens with the standards. It's enough to drive one paranoid.