3 ms·
The point I'm trying to argue, poorly, is that implementing a feature where you can right-click and explicitly choose to download something a bit faster is... p
by vertex-four 6y ago
The point I'm trying to argue, poorly, is that implementing a feature where you can right-click and explicitly choose to download something a bit faster is... probably not worth the sheer amount of arguing for "integrate IPFS into Matrix" that I've seen at every turn, for the past few years. People largely seem to want IPFS because IPFS is their pet project, not for any particular edge that it'll give Matrix, and alternative solutions are dismissed out of hand.
Even before p2p Matrix was announced, people turned up in #matrix-dev every week and argued that Matrix should replace its existing, functional file sharing system with IPFS, but could never come up with a reason to put in the work.
Sharing multi-gigabyte files with groups of people in a public way is, yes, maybe something some people do, but if IPFS was uniquely suited for this and the integrated system was deficient, wouldn't people be posting IPFS links in rooms all the time right now, and be able to talk about why they're doing this? Then it'd be a lot clearer that this is a thing people actually want to do and maybe setting up a button to do it in fewer clicks would be worth it.
- rglullis 6y ago> people turned up in #matrix-dev Honestly, for a "normal" homeserver it does not make as much sense as for the p2p version of it. For the "actual server" synapse, I am more interested now in the multi-home-repo that I saw posted also on this thread. > Sharing multi-gigabyte files with groups of people in a public way is, yes, maybe something some people do Microsoft executives in the 90s: "Internet search is a silly idea. Once you find a site that you like, you just bookmark it. Who will be constantly search for the sites they already know?" > if IPFS was uniquely suited (...) wouldn't people be posting IPFS links The use-case of posting IPFS to share content is mostly covered by "posting magnet links", which is basically "why people just don't bookmark the sites they like?" There is a lot more than could use cases that can come up once your matrix node can (a) manage data by its content (b) if it could know who also has it. And these use cases can be implemented in a way that do not make other use cases less secure. You are right though that just having people asking for something without having no real background about the underlying challenges is a pain in the ass. Barely a year of working with blockchain stuff and I already roll my eyes every time I see someone on a forum doing a "Why don't you... X?" just after reading the word in some random blog. Let's see if I find time to brush up on my Go and contribute to the multi-home-repo project.
- vertex-four 6y agoI’m interested in what those use cases that you suggest exist are. IPFS has, so far, really not impressed me (nearly all uses I’ve seen so far could literally be replaced with BitTorrent without problems) - I don’t see how integrating it into Matrix fundamentally changes anything.