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Can anyone explain what Matrix is and why is this interesting? Feels like we’re reinventing Jabber?

olah_1 6y ago
FAQ response here: https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-matrix-and-xmpp%3F https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-matri...
random9763 6y ago
It's totally different because it is a message syncing http+json API and totally not a messaging and presence protocol based on XML. /joke It is interesting because Matrix has money thus full-time developers, marketing, exposure, and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread. (The Element page on F-Droid reads "Element is able to do all this because it operates on Matrix - the standard for open, decentralised communication.", not presumptuous at all)
- Arathorn 6y ago
  I love that all 3 of the snarky points here are illfounded :D Yes, Matrix is a conversation history syncing protocol, and XMPP is a message-passing protocol. They genuinely are fundamentally different. It's a bit like the difference between SVG and Canvas. Sure, you can use both to draw pretty vector artwork. But one's an object graph, and the other's immediate mode. In terms of Matrix having money: yup, it's true that folks have generously donated to Matrix over the years to keep the project afloat, and more recently Element has funnelled most of its VC funding into supporting Matrix. However, the whole "marketing, exposure and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread" trope is hilarious, given Matrix's marketing department is... me, the project lead? and I'm doing this in my spare time with my FOSS hat on. (technically there's benpa, our dev evangelist too, but he's ended up being hijacked by Element business this year). Finally, "Matrix - the standard for open, decentralised communication" is like saying "Rugby - the game". It's not saying that Matrix is the one and only standard for open, decentralised communication any more than Rugby is the one and only game; it's disambiguating it from "Matrix - the mathematical construct". Meanwhile, comically, xmpp.org declares itself "The universal messaging standard" and "XMPP is the open standard for messaging and presence". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - jancsika 6y ago
    Yes, how dare you sift through Reddit threads relevant to matrix and devote your time to give responses there! It's like self-loathing teens reflexively making fun of an enthusiastic teacher. Except we're presumably all adults here.
  - COGlory 6y ago
    Personally I hate that I can converse with the project lead directly about my thoughts and concerns for the project.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    > However, the whole "marketing, exposure and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread" trope is hilarious, given Matrix's marketing department is... me, the project lead? At this point you've probably realized that it's still immensely more than what XMPP-the-protocol has ever done: a voice that is present on all fronts to talk about it and spread the word about our Savior :) When you want to "get into" XMPP you have to choose between NN clients, and pick a proper provider among the YY that can give you an xmpp address. When you're starting with Matrix there's a server that is "right" for beginners, with a client that is the flagship so every standard feature can be expected to be there and work, there's a company that funds its development... You might be the only person in Matrix's marketing departement, but I guess it works this way because the way the ecosystem is today, one person is enough !
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zanny 6y ago
Jabber needed reinventing. XMPP grew and thrived in the early 2000s and died as every participant fragmented off to spin up a proprietary walled garden replacement. You then need something better than XMPP to fight back against that partitioning of the messaging space because XMPP implementations became too fragmented in feature compatibility to reliably compete.
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  Part of me wonders if this is a fatal flaw in the very concept of distributed systems. It seems to me that as soon as a protocol or technology loses its single authority (multiple companies write implementations) it becomes feature frozen since it would be impossible for multiple companies to come to an agreement on what the new features should be or getting them all to implement them. If matrix actually does succeed and continue to change I think it will result in having only 1-2 server implementations and 1 client per platform. A hobby dev can't possibly keep up with all the features being implemented by a whole team working on the main client.
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    it doesn’t have to be a fatal flaw. you “just” have to layer the protocol to give decent abstractions to allow diversity on top of each layer, so as each layer matures you just keep innovating upwards - like the ethernet/ip/tcp/http stack for instance.
    - SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
      The problem I see is every time you drop an extra layer of innovation, you fragment the final product. For example, Apple adds person to person payments in imessage and it suddenly just works for every single imessage user. If someone did that as a feature on top of matrix you now have a situation where some clients support it and some don't so the feature never really gets used as its too unreliable. Maybe over time the feature rolls out to more clients but there will always be some devs who think "No I don't like this feature, I won't ever add it" I guess things are a little simpler here since it might be possible to implement new features without server changes as they may just work on top of the standard matrix spec.
3r8riacz 6y ago
A simple thing won me over XMPP to Matrix: .well-known domain delegation to use @asd:example.com as username instead of @asd:some.subdomain.example.com while being able to use the subdomain cert for the server instead of the parent domain cert. XMPP only supported SRV delegation which required the parent cert on the virtual (sub)domain.

FAQ response here: https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-matrix-and-xmpp%3F https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-matri...

random9763 6y ago

It's totally different because it is a message syncing http+json API and totally not a messaging and presence protocol based on XML. /joke It is interesting because Matrix has money thus full-time developers, marketing, exposure, and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread. (The Element page on F-Droid reads "Element is able to do all this because it operates on Matrix - the standard for open, decentralised communication.", not presumptuous at all)

Arathorn 6y ago
I love that all 3 of the snarky points here are illfounded :D Yes, Matrix is a conversation history syncing protocol, and XMPP is a message-passing protocol. They genuinely are fundamentally different. It's a bit like the difference between SVG and Canvas. Sure, you can use both to draw pretty vector artwork. But one's an object graph, and the other's immediate mode. In terms of Matrix having money: yup, it's true that folks have generously donated to Matrix over the years to keep the project afloat, and more recently Element has funnelled most of its VC funding into supporting Matrix. However, the whole "marketing, exposure and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread" trope is hilarious, given Matrix's marketing department is... me, the project lead? and I'm doing this in my spare time with my FOSS hat on. (technically there's benpa, our dev evangelist too, but he's ended up being hijacked by Element business this year). Finally, "Matrix - the standard for open, decentralised communication" is like saying "Rugby - the game". It's not saying that Matrix is the one and only standard for open, decentralised communication any more than Rugby is the one and only game; it's disambiguating it from "Matrix - the mathematical construct". Meanwhile, comically, xmpp.org declares itself "The universal messaging standard" and "XMPP is the open standard for messaging and presence". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- jancsika 6y ago
  Yes, how dare you sift through Reddit threads relevant to matrix and devote your time to give responses there! It's like self-loathing teens reflexively making fun of an enthusiastic teacher. Except we're presumably all adults here.
- COGlory 6y ago
  Personally I hate that I can converse with the project lead directly about my thoughts and concerns for the project.
- rakoo 6y ago
  > However, the whole "marketing, exposure and time to defend their work to the depth of the deepest reddit thread" trope is hilarious, given Matrix's marketing department is... me, the project lead? At this point you've probably realized that it's still immensely more than what XMPP-the-protocol has ever done: a voice that is present on all fronts to talk about it and spread the word about our Savior :) When you want to "get into" XMPP you have to choose between NN clients, and pick a proper provider among the YY that can give you an xmpp address. When you're starting with Matrix there's a server that is "right" for beginners, with a client that is the flagship so every standard feature can be expected to be there and work, there's a company that funds its development... You might be the only person in Matrix's marketing departement, but I guess it works this way because the way the ecosystem is today, one person is enough !

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

zanny 6y ago

Jabber needed reinventing. XMPP grew and thrived in the early 2000s and died as every participant fragmented off to spin up a proprietary walled garden replacement. You then need something better than XMPP to fight back against that partitioning of the messaging space because XMPP implementations became too fragmented in feature compatibility to reliably compete.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
Part of me wonders if this is a fatal flaw in the very concept of distributed systems. It seems to me that as soon as a protocol or technology loses its single authority (multiple companies write implementations) it becomes feature frozen since it would be impossible for multiple companies to come to an agreement on what the new features should be or getting them all to implement them. If matrix actually does succeed and continue to change I think it will result in having only 1-2 server implementations and 1 client per platform. A hobby dev can't possibly keep up with all the features being implemented by a whole team working on the main client.
- Arathorn 6y ago
  it doesn’t have to be a fatal flaw. you “just” have to layer the protocol to give decent abstractions to allow diversity on top of each layer, so as each layer matures you just keep innovating upwards - like the ethernet/ip/tcp/http stack for instance.
  - SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
    The problem I see is every time you drop an extra layer of innovation, you fragment the final product. For example, Apple adds person to person payments in imessage and it suddenly just works for every single imessage user. If someone did that as a feature on top of matrix you now have a situation where some clients support it and some don't so the feature never really gets used as its too unreliable. Maybe over time the feature rolls out to more clients but there will always be some devs who think "No I don't like this feature, I won't ever add it" I guess things are a little simpler here since it might be possible to implement new features without server changes as they may just work on top of the standard matrix spec.

3r8riacz 6y ago

A simple thing won me over XMPP to Matrix: .well-known domain delegation to use @asd:example.com as username instead of @asd:some.subdomain.example.com while being able to use the subdomain cert for the server instead of the parent domain cert. XMPP only supported SRV delegation which required the parent cert on the virtual (sub)domain.