6 ms·

Matrix people like to claim that it is a protocol, because it is 'governed by the foundation'. Make no mistake, it is not. It is a product. True foundation dir

Matrix people like to claim that it is a protocol, because it is 'governed by the foundation'. Make no mistake, it is not. It is a product. True foundation directs the development of a standard, and considers the interests of all parties. But in this case, there is just one party that means anything - the company that creates the actual product - and it is obvious that the foundation is powerless to resist any of its initiatives. Which makes the Matrix foundation just a facade, to better appeal to some people.

kitkat_new 5y ago
> But in this case, there is just one party that means anything not true, two more companies building on Matrix: - https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/ - https://famedly.com/ https://famedly.com/
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  There were a lot of companies building on Twitter API back in 2010. Do you remember what happened to them?
encryptluks2 5y ago
Most accurate comment right here. Anytime any legitimate criticisms get brought up they are quickly downvoted.. here on HN they get flagged so you can't even see them. If you want open and federated then go with XMPP.
- rvz 5y ago
  I welcome these alternative suspicions and will be taking them with a grain of salt. We'll see what the Matrix ecosystem will do with the money. Until then, we can only sit back and wait. > Anytime any legitimate criticisms get brought up they are quickly downvoted.. here on HN they get flagged so you can't even see them. First time? I have the suspicion that someone on HN setup a downvote bot on me so that for any comment I post, it is immediately downvoted even when I follow the 'HN guidelines' and submit tons of evidence to backup my claims. This innocent comment will probably prove both of us right on our suspicions. Ultimately I want to be proven wrong here, but we'll see.
  - thrwaeasddsaf 5y ago
    Why don't you just stop posting. You're not welcome here.
    - dang 5y ago
      Whoa, you can't attack other users like this on HN, regardless of how wrong anyone else is or you feel they are. If you do it again we will ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- goodpoint 5y ago
  The downvotes you are getting only prove the echo chamber :(
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    I think people complaining about echo chambers get downvoted for being annoying and without substance, which unfortunately validates their victim complex. The root comment of this thread isn't "oppressed" - at least he put effort into the post, and others in their rebuttal.
  - dang 5y ago
    The comment was correctly downvoted and flagged because it obviously broke the site guidelines. Please review them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines like this. The rules are clear: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... This is for the extremely good reason that most (I do not say all, but certainly the overwhelming majority) of such perceptions prove to be imaginary when we investigate the actual data. We're still always willing to investigate when people ask—but you need to follow the protocol and not post garden-variety insinuations about it to the threads.
FieryTransition 5y ago
How do you know this is a negative influence? Element being made by the same people who made matrix, how much difference is there? Is it not possible to see the source code? Is it not possible to partake in the development process in the same way most other open source projects work? Is it hard to connect to the network? I see it more as a net positive given what is known.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  For a product, it is a positive influence. For protocol - not so much. Would you be happy if Google had the ability to unilaterally define web standards?
  - FieryTransition 5y ago
    But everything is based on a hunch with a negative worldview as a lens to view the information with, that just how it feels when giving out these speculations. Politely understand, I'm not saying you are wrong, but I am saying it is wrong to assume malintent due to lack of information. And given their goal of being a general underlying protocol, to be used in different specific professional industries, it would be very damaging to close down feedback or the protocol in general, from outside influence. A hospital might need a specialized client to handle the needs of the profession, while a ministry might have a third, one does not fit all. But I see the skepticism, because if the protocol can be used by one party, which ends up hosting most of the servers, to gather metadata, then having widespread use would allow insight into a rather large dataset of people and countries. But the onsite premise of this software, is the whole reason that etc. the French government started to back the protocol and mistrust for foreign communication services. If you have secrets, why would you not just host this yourself? And there's the big difference between google and matrix, you can control all your data yourself, if you want. Totally block outside communication, setup private tunneling, separate a virtual network etc. I don't think twitter/whatsapp/whatever allows you to host their server infrastructure and block off access :-)
Arathorn 5y ago
Matrix is a protocol because... it's a protocol. The spec is at https://matrix.org/docs/spec https://matrix.org/docs/spec. There are loads of completely independent implementations of it, both clientside and serverside. Additionally, the spec is governed by the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation). It's true that we (the team who created Matrix) also created Element as a for-profit startup to fund the core team to work fulltime on Matrix - and as anyone who works at Element will tell you, the reason the company exists is to grow Matrix and make it successful. In an ideal world Matrix ends up being a huge industry in its own right, effectively replacing the PSTN & email industries, and Element ends up with some small (10%?) marketshare alongside loads of other Matrix vendors out there doing their thing. Just as XMPP wouldn't have happened if Jabber Inc hadn't bootstrapped the ecosystem back in the day; Element has a similar (but hopefully more successful) mission with Matrix. Or, perhaps similar to how Netscape helped bootstrap the open Web. In other words: you are wrong; it's not a facade.
- ThePhysicist 5y ago
  _
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    what are you talking about? Are you confusing Parity with Protocol Labs? They are completely unrelated companies (other than both beginning with the letter P :/)
    - ThePhysicist 5y ago
      Ah ok, my mistake, sorry.
- jasonzemos 5y ago
  > Element ends up with some small (10%?) marketshare alongside loads of other Matrix vendors out there doing their thing. What is a good reason for Element to relegate itself to only 10% of its own market and allow other vendors to pick up the remaining 90%? Can you name a product or service which Element is unable or unwilling to provide that competing investment could make returns on? If you can, why not pivot into that yourself? Can you assure parties investing in Matrix that Element is a trustworthy and synergistic counter-party?
roblabla 5y ago
Every single time matrix comes up, people make this argument like it's some sort of massive illumination. Guess what? Every protocol started with a single major stakeholder. The internet was the military, HTTP/2 was google, and JS was netscape. The foundation is not a facade. It has a rather clear governance system, and while it is predominantly populated by Element employees, that's mostly because most people passionate about matrix end up working there. When the fondation was set up, it actually had a 50/50 split between community members and elements employees in the core team, but the community members ended up joining element. What makes matrix a protocol is that absolutely anyone can implement it, and anyone can get involved in the process to improve the spec.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  > What makes matrix a protocol is that absolutely anyone can implement it, and anyone can get involved in the process to improve the spec. What makes matrix a product is that nobody can tell Element what to do, and people who can get involved in the process of improving the specs would have to accept any changes brought to them by the people who truly own it.
- staz 5y ago
  > Every single time matrix comes up, people make this argument it's often the same group of people too... Andrew_nenakhov "forgot" to mention it but he develops a XMPP client and likes to pop up in the comments ofpost on Matrix to complain edit: I'm not really taking a side on either XMPP or Matrix, I wish for both to succeed but I'm currently disappointed by both. I'm just getting a bit tired of XMPP fanboys spewing FUD every time Matrix is mentioned
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    why disappointed on the Matrix side ooi?
    - staz 5y ago
      Mainly messages getting delayed or undelivered (often on the IRC bridge), everything getting randomly very slow, encryption randomly breaking... sadly what I consider the usual for Matrix. I recently had a particularly vexing issue in a small encrypted room of 3 people, new messages were shown as undecrytable and then only readable a few hours later, we never figured out why. I re test it every few months/years because I hear it's getting better, the server is properly configured now, encryption system was remade, there is a new client, etc... Losing my whole chat history each time made the endeavor even more frustrating. I know not everyone keep logs but I can search my Mails and Irc logs from 20 years ago and I find it really useful. Sorry for the rant but since you asked. Like I said I fully support your work on Matrix, I just find it so ... frustrating and it make me sad because I really like the idea.
user_agent 5y ago
This is where I’m getting suspicious. 30M isn’t a trivial amount of money… @Andrew_nenakhov’s comment is on point. Normal initiatives of this kind are organized differently. This doesn’t look good regarding the future stability of the initiative. --- On top of that @sprash has mentioned some valid concerns about Matrix being a potential metadata sponge (below in the comments). Let me add some food for thought for you. Maybe you’re going to get suspicious too. a) On the Matrix website, the one with the news about getting the 30M, we’re being given only two kind of information: who’s behind the leading round regarding the investments made, and what features are going to be developed due to that donation. Now, we know nothing about who’s actually giving the money, because both Protocol Labs and Metaplanet serve as proxies here. On top of that pointing the reader to the new features part seems to me like a: „forget about the money part, take a look on what we’re going to do with that, take a look on all those shiny things!!!”. b) Both Protocol Labs and Metaplanet are kind of famous companies (proxies). The second one invested in the Boring Company for instance. It just looks so good. It’s like a miracle. Matrix is getting attention it deserves… But why on earth that happened? (take a look on (c)). c) Protocol Labs has strange ties to World Economic Forum [1][2]. They are interested in Protocol’s work in the internet space in general. I don’t like that at all. I fundamentally don’t trust WEF and I consider whatever they „touch” cancer. --- I’m on the market for something that’s going to help me and my friends replace Signal. Matrix looks very promising, but after a careful consideration it also looks like it really might be a metadata sponge. Yeah, it’s all rumors, and establishing real information about the parties involved and their motivations isn’t possible. But a suspicion is enough. It looks almost too good... This is how I decided to go with XMPP instead. Good luck. Make your own informed decisions. --- [1] https://www.weforum.org/organizations/protocol-labs https://www.weforum.org/organizations/protocol-labs [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/os8plh/the_world_economic_forums_interest_in_ipfs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/os8plh/the_world_econ...
- jnsaff2 5y ago
  Metaplanet is the investment fund for Jaan Tallinn, one of the four founding engineers of Skype. He is definitely a very positive sign for this investment in my eyes. Having worked with him a long time ago and followed his doings and presentations [1] it gives me much hope for Matrix, especially as I run my own homeserver and really like the vision. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/27/element_seriesb_thirty_million_pounds_funding/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/27/element_seriesb_thirt... [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jaan+tallinn https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jaan+tallinn

kitkat_new 5y ago

> But in this case, there is just one party that means anything not true, two more companies building on Matrix: - https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/ - https://famedly.com/ https://famedly.com/

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
There were a lot of companies building on Twitter API back in 2010. Do you remember what happened to them?

encryptluks2 5y ago

Most accurate comment right here. Anytime any legitimate criticisms get brought up they are quickly downvoted.. here on HN they get flagged so you can't even see them. If you want open and federated then go with XMPP.

rvz 5y ago
I welcome these alternative suspicions and will be taking them with a grain of salt. We'll see what the Matrix ecosystem will do with the money. Until then, we can only sit back and wait. > Anytime any legitimate criticisms get brought up they are quickly downvoted.. here on HN they get flagged so you can't even see them. First time? I have the suspicion that someone on HN setup a downvote bot on me so that for any comment I post, it is immediately downvoted even when I follow the 'HN guidelines' and submit tons of evidence to backup my claims. This innocent comment will probably prove both of us right on our suspicions. Ultimately I want to be proven wrong here, but we'll see.
- thrwaeasddsaf 5y ago
  Why don't you just stop posting. You're not welcome here.
  - dang 5y ago
    Whoa, you can't attack other users like this on HN, regardless of how wrong anyone else is or you feel they are. If you do it again we will ban you. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
goodpoint 5y ago
The downvotes you are getting only prove the echo chamber :(
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  I think people complaining about echo chambers get downvoted for being annoying and without substance, which unfortunately validates their victim complex. The root comment of this thread isn't "oppressed" - at least he put effort into the post, and others in their rebuttal.
- dang 5y ago
  The comment was correctly downvoted and flagged because it obviously broke the site guidelines. Please review them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
dang 5y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines like this. The rules are clear: "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... This is for the extremely good reason that most (I do not say all, but certainly the overwhelming majority) of such perceptions prove to be imaginary when we investigate the actual data. We're still always willing to investigate when people ask—but you need to follow the protocol and not post garden-variety insinuations about it to the threads.

FieryTransition 5y ago

How do you know this is a negative influence? Element being made by the same people who made matrix, how much difference is there? Is it not possible to see the source code? Is it not possible to partake in the development process in the same way most other open source projects work? Is it hard to connect to the network? I see it more as a net positive given what is known.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
For a product, it is a positive influence. For protocol - not so much. Would you be happy if Google had the ability to unilaterally define web standards?
- FieryTransition 5y ago
  But everything is based on a hunch with a negative worldview as a lens to view the information with, that just how it feels when giving out these speculations. Politely understand, I'm not saying you are wrong, but I am saying it is wrong to assume malintent due to lack of information. And given their goal of being a general underlying protocol, to be used in different specific professional industries, it would be very damaging to close down feedback or the protocol in general, from outside influence. A hospital might need a specialized client to handle the needs of the profession, while a ministry might have a third, one does not fit all. But I see the skepticism, because if the protocol can be used by one party, which ends up hosting most of the servers, to gather metadata, then having widespread use would allow insight into a rather large dataset of people and countries. But the onsite premise of this software, is the whole reason that etc. the French government started to back the protocol and mistrust for foreign communication services. If you have secrets, why would you not just host this yourself? And there's the big difference between google and matrix, you can control all your data yourself, if you want. Totally block outside communication, setup private tunneling, separate a virtual network etc. I don't think twitter/whatsapp/whatever allows you to host their server infrastructure and block off access :-)

Arathorn 5y ago

Matrix is a protocol because... it's a protocol. The spec is at https://matrix.org/docs/spec https://matrix.org/docs/spec. There are loads of completely independent implementations of it, both clientside and serverside. Additionally, the spec is governed by the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation). It's true that we (the team who created Matrix) also created Element as a for-profit startup to fund the core team to work fulltime on Matrix - and as anyone who works at Element will tell you, the reason the company exists is to grow Matrix and make it successful. In an ideal world Matrix ends up being a huge industry in its own right, effectively replacing the PSTN & email industries, and Element ends up with some small (10%?) marketshare alongside loads of other Matrix vendors out there doing their thing. Just as XMPP wouldn't have happened if Jabber Inc hadn't bootstrapped the ecosystem back in the day; Element has a similar (but hopefully more successful) mission with Matrix. Or, perhaps similar to how Netscape helped bootstrap the open Web. In other words: you are wrong; it's not a facade.

ThePhysicist 5y ago
_
- Arathorn 5y ago
  what are you talking about? Are you confusing Parity with Protocol Labs? They are completely unrelated companies (other than both beginning with the letter P :/)
  - ThePhysicist 5y ago
    Ah ok, my mistake, sorry.
jasonzemos 5y ago
> Element ends up with some small (10%?) marketshare alongside loads of other Matrix vendors out there doing their thing. What is a good reason for Element to relegate itself to only 10% of its own market and allow other vendors to pick up the remaining 90%? Can you name a product or service which Element is unable or unwilling to provide that competing investment could make returns on? If you can, why not pivot into that yourself? Can you assure parties investing in Matrix that Element is a trustworthy and synergistic counter-party?

roblabla 5y ago

Every single time matrix comes up, people make this argument like it's some sort of massive illumination. Guess what? Every protocol started with a single major stakeholder. The internet was the military, HTTP/2 was google, and JS was netscape. The foundation is not a facade. It has a rather clear governance system, and while it is predominantly populated by Element employees, that's mostly because most people passionate about matrix end up working there. When the fondation was set up, it actually had a 50/50 split between community members and elements employees in the core team, but the community members ended up joining element. What makes matrix a protocol is that absolutely anyone can implement it, and anyone can get involved in the process to improve the spec.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
> What makes matrix a protocol is that absolutely anyone can implement it, and anyone can get involved in the process to improve the spec. What makes matrix a product is that nobody can tell Element what to do, and people who can get involved in the process of improving the specs would have to accept any changes brought to them by the people who truly own it.
staz 5y ago
> Every single time matrix comes up, people make this argument it's often the same group of people too... Andrew_nenakhov "forgot" to mention it but he develops a XMPP client and likes to pop up in the comments ofpost on Matrix to complain edit: I'm not really taking a side on either XMPP or Matrix, I wish for both to succeed but I'm currently disappointed by both. I'm just getting a bit tired of XMPP fanboys spewing FUD every time Matrix is mentioned
- Arathorn 5y ago
  why disappointed on the Matrix side ooi?
  - staz 5y ago
    Mainly messages getting delayed or undelivered (often on the IRC bridge), everything getting randomly very slow, encryption randomly breaking... sadly what I consider the usual for Matrix. I recently had a particularly vexing issue in a small encrypted room of 3 people, new messages were shown as undecrytable and then only readable a few hours later, we never figured out why. I re test it every few months/years because I hear it's getting better, the server is properly configured now, encryption system was remade, there is a new client, etc... Losing my whole chat history each time made the endeavor even more frustrating. I know not everyone keep logs but I can search my Mails and Irc logs from 20 years ago and I find it really useful. Sorry for the rant but since you asked. Like I said I fully support your work on Matrix, I just find it so ... frustrating and it make me sad because I really like the idea.

user_agent 5y ago

This is where I’m getting suspicious. 30M isn’t a trivial amount of money… @Andrew_nenakhov’s comment is on point. Normal initiatives of this kind are organized differently. This doesn’t look good regarding the future stability of the initiative. --- On top of that @sprash has mentioned some valid concerns about Matrix being a potential metadata sponge (below in the comments). Let me add some food for thought for you. Maybe you’re going to get suspicious too. a) On the Matrix website, the one with the news about getting the 30M, we’re being given only two kind of information: who’s behind the leading round regarding the investments made, and what features are going to be developed due to that donation. Now, we know nothing about who’s actually giving the money, because both Protocol Labs and Metaplanet serve as proxies here. On top of that pointing the reader to the new features part seems to me like a: „forget about the money part, take a look on what we’re going to do with that, take a look on all those shiny things!!!”. b) Both Protocol Labs and Metaplanet are kind of famous companies (proxies). The second one invested in the Boring Company for instance. It just looks so good. It’s like a miracle. Matrix is getting attention it deserves… But why on earth that happened? (take a look on (c)). c) Protocol Labs has strange ties to World Economic Forum [1][2]. They are interested in Protocol’s work in the internet space in general. I don’t like that at all. I fundamentally don’t trust WEF and I consider whatever they „touch” cancer. --- I’m on the market for something that’s going to help me and my friends replace Signal. Matrix looks very promising, but after a careful consideration it also looks like it really might be a metadata sponge. Yeah, it’s all rumors, and establishing real information about the parties involved and their motivations isn’t possible. But a suspicion is enough. It looks almost too good... This is how I decided to go with XMPP instead. Good luck. Make your own informed decisions. --- [1] https://www.weforum.org/organizations/protocol-labs https://www.weforum.org/organizations/protocol-labs [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/os8plh/the_world_economic_forums_interest_in_ipfs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/os8plh/the_world_econ...

jnsaff2 5y ago
Metaplanet is the investment fund for Jaan Tallinn, one of the four founding engineers of Skype. He is definitely a very positive sign for this investment in my eyes. Having worked with him a long time ago and followed his doings and presentations [1] it gives me much hope for Matrix, especially as I run my own homeserver and really like the vision. [0] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/27/element_seriesb_thirty_million_pounds_funding/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/27/element_seriesb_thirt... [1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jaan+tallinn https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jaan+tallinn