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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

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.
    - vector_spaces 5y ago
      I hear you. Personally I'm hesitant to recommend anything in the Matrix ecosystem in large part because there are mutually verified users on my server who haven't been able to talk to each other in like 10 months, and the issue thread has been stagnant for about that long. Frankly it's fine that there are bugs and it's even fine that there are bugs impacting core functionality for such an ambitious project, but it's frustrating that this ecosystem falls down so hard when it comes to providing an accessible experience for non-technical users (i.e. when things don't work, it's extremely ungraceful and unclear what exactly is happening or why).
    - Arathorn 5y ago
      Thanks for spelling it out. You really shouldn't ever lose your chat history, but it sounds like something is going horribly wrong on your encryption. As part of the funding we're setting up a dedicated crypto team (at last) to focus on nothing but the remaining encryption problems. It's super embarassing that these failure modes can still exist today though - sorry :(
    - louiskottmann 5y ago
      Same complaint here, I really like the project, hosted a server for a while, but ultimately the problems of verified users in channels were too much of a hassle. To be fair, other E2E chat solutions have similar problems, like Signal. It feels more to me like we did not properly crack this problem yet. I have yet to try it again but definitely want to.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  What I do has little do to with Matrix masquerading as an open internet protocol while being fully owned by one commercial corporation. It is roughly the same to XMPP as AMP are to HTTP. That is the only reason I oppose it. If it wasn't, I would not rule out developing a Matrix client (though doubtful, I don't really like the protocol and implementation)

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.
  - vector_spaces 5y ago
    I hear you. Personally I'm hesitant to recommend anything in the Matrix ecosystem in large part because there are mutually verified users on my server who haven't been able to talk to each other in like 10 months, and the issue thread has been stagnant for about that long. Frankly it's fine that there are bugs and it's even fine that there are bugs impacting core functionality for such an ambitious project, but it's frustrating that this ecosystem falls down so hard when it comes to providing an accessible experience for non-technical users (i.e. when things don't work, it's extremely ungraceful and unclear what exactly is happening or why).
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    Thanks for spelling it out. You really shouldn't ever lose your chat history, but it sounds like something is going horribly wrong on your encryption. As part of the funding we're setting up a dedicated crypto team (at last) to focus on nothing but the remaining encryption problems. It's super embarassing that these failure modes can still exist today though - sorry :(
  - louiskottmann 5y ago
    Same complaint here, I really like the project, hosted a server for a while, but ultimately the problems of verified users in channels were too much of a hassle. To be fair, other E2E chat solutions have similar problems, like Signal. It feels more to me like we did not properly crack this problem yet. I have yet to try it again but definitely want to.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
What I do has little do to with Matrix masquerading as an open internet protocol while being fully owned by one commercial corporation. It is roughly the same to XMPP as AMP are to HTTP. That is the only reason I oppose it. If it wasn't, I would not rule out developing a Matrix client (though doubtful, I don't really like the protocol and implementation)