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From 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 els

From 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 ago
Don'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/
- wut42 6y ago
  The correct URL is https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition/ https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition...
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    oops, Ghost fail; fixed now :)
sytse 6y ago
From 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.
- storrgie 6y ago
  can you comment on the vision that gitlab as a product would have in the future for integration with gitter/matrix? We're running a decent sized gitlab+mattermost instance now, we're using mattermost guests to pull in collaborators from upstream. It would be overall a lot easier if we were using something like matrix where it's federated and we can bring people in to our homeserver without having to make accounts for them.
  - sytse 6y ago
    That sounds like a great use case and we would welcome Matrix support in GitLab. Adding this isn't on our company roadmap so it would have to be a contribution. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22996 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22996 for a related but not quite the same suggestion.
    - ptman 6y ago
      Oh, right, please get rid of mattermost and replace it with matrix/gitter
mathnmusic 6y ago
One of the best features of Gitter is that it can be embedded on webpages which reduces a lot of friction for public communities. Please keep that feature and perhaps, even replicate it in Matrix. This can be a unique value prop for both over the proprietary ones. Plus, it enriches the Web as opposed to moving all things into app silos.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  For sure. Matrix is sprouting this too (there was a GSoC project this summer for it, and the Hydrogen Matrix client is also properly embeddable, unlike Element) - but with Gitter becoming a Matrix client we could do so from that side too!
pabs3 6y ago
The Matrix to IRC bridge (for at least freenode and OFTC) has a number of suboptimal behaviours on the IRC side, it would be great if you could improve the experience for folks not using Matrix.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  We’re aware of folks objecting that messages longer than 3 lines get autopastebinned, and that replies are a bit jarring on IRC. Or do you have something else in mind? Impedance mismatches are inevitable, but we obviously don’t want Matrix to crap over native experiences on IRC or elsewhere. So: give us specifics and we’ll fix as best we can.
  - pabs3 6y ago
    The reply issue is pretty hard to solve, since sometimes the extra text is useful, sometimes it isn't. Perhaps if there has been N minutes or X lines of chat since the message being replied to, then include the extra text, otherwise don't. The template should be changed to something like this though: <foo[m]> bar: re "hello about something longis...", hello! <foo[m]> bar: re "short hello", hello! Those are the main ones, a few more: Image uploads could probably just post a link to the image instead using /me uploaded an image: foo.png (123KiB) < https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/...../foo.png https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/....... > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full Matrix URL on the IRC side, rather than just using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> [bar](https://matrix.to/#/@bar:matrix.org): hello Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full name on the IRC side, rather than using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> Bar Baz: hello Matrix <> IRC splits seem to occur more often than IRC netsplits.
    - auscompgeek 6y ago
      > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full Matrix URL on the IRC side, rather than just using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> [bar](https://matrix.to/#/@bar:matrix.org): hello This one is a client-side bug, not a bridge bug. > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full name on the IRC side, rather than using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> Bar Baz: hello This should only be a thing when mentioning non-IRC users. Is this actually a problem?

samschooler 6y ago

Don'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/

wut42 6y ago
The correct URL is https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition/ https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition...
- Arathorn 6y ago
  oops, Ghost fail; fixed now :)

sytse 6y ago

From 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.

storrgie 6y ago
can you comment on the vision that gitlab as a product would have in the future for integration with gitter/matrix? We're running a decent sized gitlab+mattermost instance now, we're using mattermost guests to pull in collaborators from upstream. It would be overall a lot easier if we were using something like matrix where it's federated and we can bring people in to our homeserver without having to make accounts for them.
- sytse 6y ago
  That sounds like a great use case and we would welcome Matrix support in GitLab. Adding this isn't on our company roadmap so it would have to be a contribution. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22996 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22996 for a related but not quite the same suggestion.
  - ptman 6y ago
    Oh, right, please get rid of mattermost and replace it with matrix/gitter

mathnmusic 6y ago

One of the best features of Gitter is that it can be embedded on webpages which reduces a lot of friction for public communities. Please keep that feature and perhaps, even replicate it in Matrix. This can be a unique value prop for both over the proprietary ones. Plus, it enriches the Web as opposed to moving all things into app silos.

Arathorn 6y ago
For sure. Matrix is sprouting this too (there was a GSoC project this summer for it, and the Hydrogen Matrix client is also properly embeddable, unlike Element) - but with Gitter becoming a Matrix client we could do so from that side too!

pabs3 6y ago

The Matrix to IRC bridge (for at least freenode and OFTC) has a number of suboptimal behaviours on the IRC side, it would be great if you could improve the experience for folks not using Matrix.

Arathorn 6y ago
We’re aware of folks objecting that messages longer than 3 lines get autopastebinned, and that replies are a bit jarring on IRC. Or do you have something else in mind? Impedance mismatches are inevitable, but we obviously don’t want Matrix to crap over native experiences on IRC or elsewhere. So: give us specifics and we’ll fix as best we can.
- pabs3 6y ago
  The reply issue is pretty hard to solve, since sometimes the extra text is useful, sometimes it isn't. Perhaps if there has been N minutes or X lines of chat since the message being replied to, then include the extra text, otherwise don't. The template should be changed to something like this though: <foo[m]> bar: re "hello about something longis...", hello! <foo[m]> bar: re "short hello", hello! Those are the main ones, a few more: Image uploads could probably just post a link to the image instead using /me uploaded an image: foo.png (123KiB) < https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/...../foo.png https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/r0/download/matrix.org/....... > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full Matrix URL on the IRC side, rather than just using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> [bar](https://matrix.to/#/@bar:matrix.org): hello Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full name on the IRC side, rather than using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> Bar Baz: hello Matrix <> IRC splits seem to occur more often than IRC netsplits.
  - auscompgeek 6y ago
    > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full Matrix URL on the IRC side, rather than just using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> [bar](https://matrix.to/#/@bar:matrix.org): hello This one is a client-side bug, not a bridge bug. > Directing a message at a specific person on the channel sometimes posts their full name on the IRC side, rather than using their IRC nick: <foo[m]> Bar Baz: hello This should only be a thing when mentioning non-IRC users. Is this actually a problem?