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Gitter is joining Matrix
- reitanuki 6y agoThis is interesting and unexpected news.
- pknopf 6y agoGitLab hasn't been giving it any attention. All they need is a checkmark in their portfolio.
- akerro 6y agoYes, shame GitLab didn't integrate Gitter natively into public projects same way issues and roadmaps are integrated.
- YorickPeterse 6y agoI recall we considered this at various stages a few years back. I think this was around the same time we introduced our chatops integration. I don't know the exact details and can't speak for others, but I suspect GitLab realised that chat(ops) tools are hard to sell and our time is better spent elsewhere. It's a shame though, having Gitter/chat directly integrated in a project (properly, not using e.g. an iframe) would've been pretty cool.
- Arathorn 6y agoIronically Gitter moving to Matrix probably makes this more likely - as integrating Matrix into GitLab would be much more sensible than integrating a single opinionated client like Gitter, given if GitLab properly spoke Matrix for chatops, it'd then be available to anyone in Matrix (Gitter, Element, or any platform bridged into Matrix - Slack, Discord, etc)
- akerro 6y agoelement already has some gitlab integrations
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoThis is awesome. I found Gitter super handy because of it's close tie to repos, but being able to reach it from Element would be really nice.
- mike-cardwell 6y agoYou already could, before this announcement. For example, want to join https://gitter.im/hashicorp-consul/Lobby https://gitter.im/hashicorp-consul/Lobby ? Then join #gitter_hashicorp-consul=2FLobby:matrix.org from Element.
- Arathorn 6y agoyup, but the experience is pretty dire, particularly on the Gitter side of the bridge. The intention instead is to be able to join #hashicorp-consul_lobby:gitter.im in Matrix, and have all the Gitter users natively there in Matrix... but also all the Matrix users there natively in Gitter :)
- wraptile 6y agoYou can also click little discover icon on Element and search Gitter for channels. That being said the bridge is very flaky. Sometimes my messages would not get delivered and attachment such as schreenshots never work either. For the most part it's quite functional though!
- Arathorn 6y agoFrom the Matrix side, we're ridiculously happy to have the opportunity to defragment developer chat a bit, and get folks on Gitter natively talking to folks elsewhere on Matrix (including bridged to IRC, Slack, Discord or whatever). The fragmentation of FOSS development chat into proprietary silos a few years back was incredibly depressing, and this is our attempt to put right what once went wrong :) Happy to try to answer any questions from the Matrix side! Also, https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/element-acquires-gitter-to-get-more-developers-on-board-with-the-open-matrix-messaging-protocol/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/element-acquires-gitter-to... is a pretty massive deep-dive into the migration, and The Changelog did a big podcast covering off all the details on both the GitLab/Gitter and Element/Matrix side: https://changelog.com/podcast/414 https://changelog.com/podcast/414
- samschooler 6y agoDon't know if you have access to the Gitter side but as of now, the blog post is 404ing https://blog.gitter.im/gitter-element-acquisition/ https://blog.gitter.im/gitter-element-acquisition/
- sytse 6y agoFrom the GitLab side we're very happy with the new home for Gitter. Chat is very useful but using multiple incompatible technologies has lead to fragmentation and silos. For example external developers being on Gitter when the organization behind the project is on Slack. Matrix is a great way to solve that and we hope Gitter will contribute to the success of it.
- lhoff 6y agoIt is not obvious from the title but Element is actually acquiring Gitter. Quote from the article: > In practice, the way this is happening is that Element (the company founded by the Matrix core team to fund Matrix development) is acquiring Gitter from GitLab, with a combined Gitter and Element dev team focusing on giving Gitter a new life in Matrix! There is also another blogpost from the elements side https://element.io/blog/gitter-is-joining-element/ https://element.io/blog/gitter-is-joining-element/
- Arathorn 6y agoWell, the main news is that Gitter is going to natively join Matrix. We've been talking about doing this for a few years, but it never got to the top of the todo list on either side - plus frankly we're breaking new ground by making a large existing network natively speak Matrix (complete with incorporating room archives, etc). Others (e.g. Rocket.Chat) have had a go at natively speaking Matrix but it's hard to be the first to do so unless both sides of the bridge are prioritising it and focusing on making it a success - and an obvious way of getting aligned is if you are on the same team. So when the opportunity came up for Gitter to move from GitLab to Element, it was a no-brainer way to ensure a successful native bridge for Gitter into Matrix. But we'd probably have got around to it anyway... it'd just have had a lower chance of success. As another datapoint: Gitter was already looking (independently) at using Element to replace their native mobile apps, which otherwise they were having to deprecate (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/-/issues/2281 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/-/issues/2281). Edit: another relevant link: https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition/ https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition...
- justinclift 6y ago> Well, the main news is that Gitter is going to natively join Matrix. Depends on your point of view. I'd not heard of Matrix before, and don't really care. To me, it's more interesting that GitLab is selling off Gitter.
- ncmncm 6y ago
- randtrain34 6y ago> Our plan is instead to merge Gitter’s features into Element (or next generations of Element) itself and then - if and only if Element has achieved parity with Gitter based on the above list - we expect to upgrade the deployment on gitter.im to a Gitter-customised version of Element. The inevitable side-effect is that we’ll be adding new features to Element rather than Gitter going forwards. Wonder what existing Gitter users think about this?
- Arathorn 6y agoHopefully they'll be happy that Gitter will sprout all Matrix's funky features like E2EE, VoIP, Widgets, Read receipts, Reactions, a bajillion clients/bots/bridges, the open standard API itself... and as long as Element-branded-as-Gitter looks and performs and smells enough like Gitter, and the community & rooms are still there, all will be well. And if they don't like it, they can always go spin up their own Gitter instance and maintain it, bridged into Matrix - it's FOSS after all :D
- phone8675309 6y agoThis is the "slippers and sex toy" deflection. If the user's don't like the slippers (new features) they can use the sex toy to fornicate themselves.
- crakenzak 6y agoman some people really find anything to complain about huh
- Arathorn 6y agoand this is a bad thing? O:-)
- phone8675309 6y agoNot saying it's good or bad, but nobody can be shocked Pikachu when it's never the "year of the Linux desktop" with this type of mentality.
- varbhat 6y agoSo, how long will it take (approximate) to complete the mentioned process ? Also, I think that matrix ecosystem will grow from this move.
- Arathorn 6y agoWe hope to get Gitter natively speaking Matrix in the coming months. It'll probably be a year or so before Element has feature parity with Gitter though :)
- sandGorgon 6y agoCongratulations to Element ! Gitter is a fantastic platform . Are we possibly going to see Gitter become a reference open source implementation of Matrix ?
- siraben 6y agoThis is great news. I've used Gitter for communication in some open source projects, and have always found certain things painful. My favorite points from the article are; - Improving iOS and Android apps. At least in the iOS case, the experience is abysmal (the web interface is similarly so) - Replacement of the matrix-appservice-gitter bridge. I've used the Matrix <-> Gitter bridge for some time now but there's much left to be desired, such as proper edit and deletion of messages to and from the services. Overall, it's great to see less future fragmentation in the chat systems developers use, reminds me of the XKCD comic[0] and a modification showing the matrix.org bridges[1] [0] https://xkcd.com/1810/ https://xkcd.com/1810/ [1] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*vILzcbWOi7e4RtK0 https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*vILzcbWOi7e4RtK0
- ncmncm 6y agoFunny that with all the circles, Discord isn't there. Or Gitter.
- dschuessler 6y agoWow. It really needed this response to the xkcd comic for the vision of Matrix to click with me. Matrix just went from "just another messenger who happens to have bridges to others" to "possibly the only communication software you’ll ever need" in my mind. Although I was well aware of Matrix for years, that particular intention behind it somehow never got through to me.
- jeffail 6y agoI'm massively rooting for this. I really wanted to use Gitter as the official chat for my projects, but the experience was just so painful that I ended up fragmenting the community across Discord and a gated Slack. I would love to have a forever home where I can feel comfortable getting everyone on board.
- adsjhdashkj 6y agoCan anyone comment on the state of UX with Element these days? I'm changing to Linux/Windows from Mac, so i'm dumping iMessage - but i'm not convinced Signal has a good enough UX to keep me and my family happy. Sidenote, i love how i can pay Element and support Matrix/Element.
- robjan 6y agoElement is probably harder to use than Signal for less technically inclined users. There are some other matrix clients, like Pattle, which hide much of the complexity and give a more familiar UX to other messaging apps.
- Shared404 6y agoPersonally speaking, I'm extremely happy with Element. With good UX, easy encryption, the option to self host if you feel so inclined, I haven't found anything to complain about.
- j-james 6y agoIn my opinion, Signal's UX is better than Element. Element's distinction of rooms / communities is not great, and hindered by the user interface. Although, after checking out Element again, all the other parts of the UI that I thought were unintuitive were changed up, so it's certainly improving. Particularly for the situation you described - small, family chats - I'd recommend Signal over Element / Matrix.
- Avamander 6y agoStill not good, confusing and not very fast. Like Keybase four years ago. They have some catching up to do and I hope they do it before Keybase is shut down. If a Riot contributor is reading this comment, go try Keybase out while you still can, there are things it does well.
- DenseComet 6y agoIf you want to support the project and get something from it, a good way is to get yourself a hosted server from Element. The cheapest plan is $10 per month for 5 users, and includes things like a custom domain. https://element.io/plans-and-pricing/pro https://element.io/plans-and-pricing/pro
- djsumdog 6y agoInteresting. Is there already a Gitter->Matrix bridge, and that would essentially be going away once Gitter fully supports Matrix? It seems like they're not changing Gitter to talk Matrix, but actually switching the backend to be Matrix? Is that right?
- decentralisedog 6y agoThe short term plan is to replace the existing (rather rubbish) Gitter<->Matrix bridge with a fully featured bridge that seamlessly bridges between Gitter and Matrix. The long term plan folding gitter.im features into Element and Gitter users will migrate to using Element and Matrix.
- jerodsanto 6y agoAdditional topics discussed in our just-released conversation[1] with GitLab and Element leads: 1. What happened to "ChatOps" and why is GitLab divesting in this space? 2. Who contacted whom? What are some details of the acquisition process and negotiations? 3. What does this mean at a practical sense for existing Gitter users? 4. What's going to happen in the next 6, 12, and 18 months? [1]: https://changelog.com/podcast/414 https://changelog.com/podcast/414
- tha0x5 6y ago"ChatOps" almost invariably means Slack. That's why GitLab is divesting in that space. Look at what happened HipChat, Stride, etc.
- sytse 6y ago1. ChatOps is still a feature of GitLab https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/chatops/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/chatops/ and supports multiple chat platforms. GitLab doesn't need to own the chat to make chatops work. 2. GitLab contacted Matrix. I think 3. and 4. have answers in https://matrix.org/blog/2020/09/30/welcoming-gitter-to-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2020/09/30/welcoming-gitter-to-matri...
- theon144 6y agoWay cool! Anecdotally, of course, but a sizeable number of Matrix rooms I was in were actually bridged Gitter rooms. Looking forward to tighter integration!
- TooCreative 6y agoI really like to use IRC on the terminal via Irssi. Can Irssi be used to access this matrix thing? If not, is there some nice matrix command line client in the Debian repos? Or maybe someone could just make an IRC server which is a bridge to matrix?
- eeZah7Ux 6y agoBe aware that the bridges between matrix.org and IRC are often unreliable.
- Arathorn 6y agothis has historically due to the matrix.org (where those bridges live) being thoroughly overloaded. these days (since ~May) we have it under control and it should be pretty robust.
- mewmewblobcat 6y agoThere's matrix-ircd which exposes Matrix servers as an IRC server. So, I'm pretty sure what you want already exists.
- andolanra 6y agoMatrix is based on an open documented protocol, which means it welcomes multiple implementations. There are several terminal-based clients, which you can see on their current client list, and I wouldn't be surprised if more appear over time: https://matrix.org/clients/ https://matrix.org/clients/ There are also Matrix-IRC bridges that already exist: https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc
- TooCreative 6y agoNone of the terminal ones seem to be in the Debian repos.
- 3np 6y ago> Can Irssi be used to access this matrix thing? Yup. I haven't tried it myself and I think there are different ways to set that up but this could be a start (I think this is more targeted towards bridging matrix and IRC, which may or may not be what you want): https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc > If not, is there some nice matrix command line client in the Debian repos? Not sure what's in the mainline debian repos but there are some decent CLI clients, yes: https://matrix.org/clients/ https://matrix.org/clients/ If you're OK with weechat you can use that already :) IMO matrix is already mature to be an IRC killer (caveat federated/decentralized identities, if that's something you require but arguably IRC doesn't have that either).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Nuzzerino 6y agoI've found trying to get help from any project that uses Gitter to be a huge pain. It seems that people hardly ever check messages on there. I hope this helps the situation from a UX perspective. Maybe can provide better notification management options?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jondubois 6y agoI thought Gitter had already been acquired by GitLab?
- boleary-gl 6y agoGitLab team member here. That is correct - in 2017 https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/03/15/gitter-acquisition/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/03/15/gitter-acquisition/. But as announced today, Gitter will be going to Matrix going forward.
- josteink 6y agoOooh. How nice. Just a few days ago I considered setting up a Gitter-bridge for my Marrix-instance, but decided that it was both too involved and not well-enough integrated to be worth it. This is really good news!
- dangsBoss 6y agoFrom the optimalized side we are always sorry that anything joiins the Matrix enclave. Matrix is so over-utilized and under-optimalized, I hope they will do something about it, since it's embarrassing that Mozilla co uses it as their war-room, and, wait, that it sucks so much. Mozilla is semi-corrupt so perhaps that's the CO'd answer. Matrix sucks, even Discord is danged better.
- FloatArtifact 6y agoGitter has a much simpler onboarding experience and users don't have to be signed in or members of a room to view chat. I like the ideals of Element. In fact I have the services bridged between chat rooms. Currently editing chat posts between different clients is less than subpar. Gitter build on Element will fix that issue.
- acd 6y agoI am happy and thankful to the developers that open source chat is joining forces. It’s the right thing todo!
- mleonhard 6y agoIf you granted Gitter access to Gitlab, you granted it full read access to everything in your Gitlab account. This is because Gitlab does not yet support restricted access grants [1]. Soon https://element.io https://element.io will have that full access. Now is a good time to check your Gitlab access grants: https://gitlab.com/profile/applications https://gitlab.com/profile/applications [1] "Support restricting OAuth tokens to specific projects and groups " https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22115 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22115
- Arathorn 6y agoAbsolutely - at Element we categorically have zero desire to have access to anything in your GL accounts. On the other hand, for the same reason, we’re not going to exploit that :/
- TheRealPomax 6y agoBut the responsible thing to do here is to _throw all that data away_, and force everyone to explicitly grant gitter access to their account again. With only as many rights as necessary, of course. No app needs full account access, all the time. Make the various parts differently authenticated layers.
- Avamander 6y agoI really hope that Gitter chat histories will be still kept search-engine indexed the way they are right now.
- Arathorn 6y agothey will.
- kuon 6y agoI really like matrix, but there is one important feature missing : threads. Once threads will be implemented, I am sure matrix will grow a lot more, especially inside enterprises. I hope the merge will help with that. Best of luck both teams.
- spurgu 6y agoNice! This just inspired me to setup my own Matrix server (had been using Matrix for a couple of weeks).
- xvilka 6y agoThe problem with Matrix is their focus on Electron-based client. Official native client would have been better .
- mxuribe 6y agoI don't mean to sound stuffy when i say that the beauty of open source is that you are free to build a better alternative...but it is true. Either you can build a better thing that you want, or you can pay someone to do so, etc. That being said, there are existing native clients already. May i direct your attention to: https://www.matrix.org/clients/ https://www.matrix.org/clients/
- xvilka 6y agoI am aware of native clients. Due to being unofficial they often get abandoned and two years ago the list looked differently. What I am talking about is that something simple as chat application should not take gigabyte of memory and incorporate a whole web-browser underneath.
- SummerlyMars 6y agoI'm running an electron-based note taking app right now, and it's taking less than 100MB of memory.
- cxr 6y agoDissenting opinion: Element UI/Matrix UX is not good. It's as unwieldy/hostile/frustrating as IRC, maybe more. Gitter, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. The biggest issues with it are that they chose to go with the "has a GitLab/GitHub/Twitter account and must use it to sign in" antipattern as the barrier to entry, and that the web client's layout at half-width 1080p is unfathomably bad. Like, clearly-no-one-has-ever-tested-their-responsive-layout-rules bad.
- japgolly 6y agoInteresting, I'd never heard of Matrix. And a very timely discovery too... I might find myself integrating this with ShipReq in a few months. (Disclaimer: ShipReq dev here)