4 ms·

KDE is ready to deprecate IRC, XMPP, and Telegram in favor of Matrix

77 points by LorenDB 3y ago

peterlk 3y ago
If this got more development energy put on matrix bridges, this seems like a net win. IRC still works, but is used through a matrix bridge… I would love to have a unified chat layer
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  It's totally sweet. I consolidated WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Instagram into my Matrix server, and get it all via Element. Battery life is many magnitudes better on my Pixel and ThinkPad as a result instead of running all this background crap. One app to install on any device, any OS, including Linux, and all my messages appear, SMS included. What's not to love?
  - greatquux 3y ago
    This comment made me go down a serious Matrix + bridges rabbithole. Seriously considering getting a cheap VPS and doing it. But would you recommend using matterbridge for all the protocols or using some of the individual protocol bridge projects I've seen out there? I only really need XMPP, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
  - resuresu 3y ago
    My only gripe about element is its too easy to get encryption locked out of rooms if you switch devices and cant access the old one anymore. They need to get rid of that crap. And no im not backing up keys and remembering more passwords. Enough!
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Can't say I've ever had that happen, and backing up keys is trivial. Why don't you use a password manager in 2023 instead of being forced to remember things?
      - em-bee 3y ago
        i don't know. i thought i had a backup of my keys, but they aren't recognized. doesn't seem trivial to me.
    - tristan957 3y ago
      I keep my key in my password manager.
  - syntaxing 3y ago
    I setup my synapse about 6 months ago, and it was not easy to get the bridges working. I would argue I’m pretty technically sound but getting everything running took a lot of trial and error. If the bridges deployed easier like a snap package, it would help a ton.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      There's an amazing Ansible playbook. Use that, it's great and easy to keep everything up to date.
      - endigma 3y ago
        Link?
        wkat4242 3y ago
        Yeah sorry I was on mobile when I wrote that so I didn't have it to hand. Here it is: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
    - DoItToMe81 3y ago
      What bridges were you using? I've set up several and the hardest part was reading through the default configurations.
      - syntaxing 3y ago
        I’m running a WhatsApp and signal bridge, I use everything through Docker. The biggest issue was registering the bridge to work with synapse. If everything fails, you need to delete specific folders in your volume and it gets messy. I also have a Postgres image running that isn’t as obvious how to set up from the docs.
- xinayder 3y ago
  Matrix bridging to IRC is a pain for server administrators and tbh I think IRC should be left out of this "bridge everything" goal. It's totally different and IRCv3 is working on modernizing the protocol, bringing a lot of new features available on IM services to IRC. There's no need to bridge IRC to Matrix or vice-versa, IRC is much more simple and lightweight than Matrix. I am not bothered by running The Lounge + ZNC and having to use Matrix for everything else. EDIT: I don't like this push for Matrix everywhere and essentially only having Matrix as the means of contact for open source projects. I installed Dendrite (lightweight golang homeserver) on my cheap VPS and I realized that federation is a big no-no for me, Matrix uses a LOT of resources for federation.
goodSteveramos 3y ago
[flagged]
- arp242 3y ago
  Matrix is just a protocol, not an application. And it seems Amdocs hasn't even been involved in Matrix for five years.
  - goodSteveramos 3y ago
    “In 2015, a subsidiary of Amdocs was created, named "Vector Creations Limited", and the Matrix staff was moved there.[11] In July 2017, the funding by Amdocs was announced to be cut and in the following weeks the core team created their own UK-based company, "New Vector Limited",[12] which was mainly built to support the development of Matrix and Riot, which was later renamed to Element.” Its still the same people wether they are technically under the Amdocs umbrella or not.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      The Matrix team has been together in various incarnations since around 2003; we came from two companies (one UK, one French) who happened to get acquired by Amdocs in 2010. I ended up running their unified communications division as an independent unit, and after a few years of building SIP+XMPP based comms apps, we came up with Matrix in 2014, pitched the idea to Amdocs, who then funded it for a few years, and then we span out to set up Element (aka New Vector) in 2017. Paranoia about Amdocs having funded Matrix from 2014-2017 is utterly unwarranted, and often seems to be rooted in some pretty unpleasant prejudices. Plus both the spec and implementations are all liberally licensed open source - it should be painfully obvious to anyone who actually bothers to look at the protocol that there is no cloak and dagger, however much some folks might wish there to be :|
      - goodSteveramos 3y ago
        Believe me. I do not ‘wish’ Israel to have a thriving grey market for surveillance hacking tools like Pegasus that are used by oppressive regimes around the world. I also do not ‘wish’ for the Israeli government to fund companies like Amdocs who have been accused multiple times of improperly handing over customer data to that government. But those are the facts and so when I am accused of some kind of vague ‘prejudice’ for having my fair suspicions about a telecom company funded in turn by Amdocs i can’t help but feel like I’m taking flak for being over the right target. “The initial project was created inside Amdocs, while building a chat tool called "Amdocs Unified Communications” Are you contradicting the wikipedia article? I have no inside knowledge so if there are inaccuracies on wikipedia it would be great if you could correct them. As an insider, what do you think was Amdoc’s reason for building a whole new chat protocol? Why would they pay big money for decentralization? Why wasn’t Slack or SIP+XMPP good enough?
RadiozRadioz 3y ago
I am surprised they had a Telegram bridge at all, it doesn't really fit in with the other services from an ideological standpoint. Was this used for communicating with people outside the FOSS ecosystem?
- Barrin92 3y ago
  I don't think the KDE community takes any particular ideological standpoints. After all they also offer a lot of their software like KDE Connect on Windows which I'm very glad for btw, a lot of their stuff has good cross platform support.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Telegram is more popular than KDE. Sometimes you just need to be where people are. You could argue the same thing about their Facebook Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, VK and Instagram. There's a reason that some FOSS projects succeed whilst others fail. They live and die by their communities.
- Saris 3y ago
  Tons of people use it, it makes sense to have a bridge
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

77 points by LorenDB 3y ago

If this got more development energy put on matrix bridges, this seems like a net win. IRC still works, but is used through a matrix bridge… I would love to have a unified chat layer

hammyhavoc 3y ago
It's totally sweet. I consolidated WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Instagram into my Matrix server, and get it all via Element. Battery life is many magnitudes better on my Pixel and ThinkPad as a result instead of running all this background crap. One app to install on any device, any OS, including Linux, and all my messages appear, SMS included. What's not to love?
- greatquux 3y ago
  This comment made me go down a serious Matrix + bridges rabbithole. Seriously considering getting a cheap VPS and doing it. But would you recommend using matterbridge for all the protocols or using some of the individual protocol bridge projects I've seen out there? I only really need XMPP, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
- resuresu 3y ago
  My only gripe about element is its too easy to get encryption locked out of rooms if you switch devices and cant access the old one anymore. They need to get rid of that crap. And no im not backing up keys and remembering more passwords. Enough!
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Can't say I've ever had that happen, and backing up keys is trivial. Why don't you use a password manager in 2023 instead of being forced to remember things?
    - em-bee 3y ago
      i don't know. i thought i had a backup of my keys, but they aren't recognized. doesn't seem trivial to me.
  - tristan957 3y ago
    I keep my key in my password manager.
- syntaxing 3y ago
  I setup my synapse about 6 months ago, and it was not easy to get the bridges working. I would argue I’m pretty technically sound but getting everything running took a lot of trial and error. If the bridges deployed easier like a snap package, it would help a ton.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    There's an amazing Ansible playbook. Use that, it's great and easy to keep everything up to date.
    - endigma 3y ago
      Link?
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        Yeah sorry I was on mobile when I wrote that so I didn't have it to hand. Here it is: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
  - DoItToMe81 3y ago
    What bridges were you using? I've set up several and the hardest part was reading through the default configurations.
    - syntaxing 3y ago
      I’m running a WhatsApp and signal bridge, I use everything through Docker. The biggest issue was registering the bridge to work with synapse. If everything fails, you need to delete specific folders in your volume and it gets messy. I also have a Postgres image running that isn’t as obvious how to set up from the docs.
xinayder 3y ago
Matrix bridging to IRC is a pain for server administrators and tbh I think IRC should be left out of this "bridge everything" goal. It's totally different and IRCv3 is working on modernizing the protocol, bringing a lot of new features available on IM services to IRC. There's no need to bridge IRC to Matrix or vice-versa, IRC is much more simple and lightweight than Matrix. I am not bothered by running The Lounge + ZNC and having to use Matrix for everything else. EDIT: I don't like this push for Matrix everywhere and essentially only having Matrix as the means of contact for open source projects. I installed Dendrite (lightweight golang homeserver) on my cheap VPS and I realized that federation is a big no-no for me, Matrix uses a LOT of resources for federation.

goodSteveramos 3y ago

[flagged]

arp242 3y ago
Matrix is just a protocol, not an application. And it seems Amdocs hasn't even been involved in Matrix for five years.
- goodSteveramos 3y ago
  “In 2015, a subsidiary of Amdocs was created, named "Vector Creations Limited", and the Matrix staff was moved there.[11] In July 2017, the funding by Amdocs was announced to be cut and in the following weeks the core team created their own UK-based company, "New Vector Limited",[12] which was mainly built to support the development of Matrix and Riot, which was later renamed to Element.” Its still the same people wether they are technically under the Amdocs umbrella or not.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    The Matrix team has been together in various incarnations since around 2003; we came from two companies (one UK, one French) who happened to get acquired by Amdocs in 2010. I ended up running their unified communications division as an independent unit, and after a few years of building SIP+XMPP based comms apps, we came up with Matrix in 2014, pitched the idea to Amdocs, who then funded it for a few years, and then we span out to set up Element (aka New Vector) in 2017. Paranoia about Amdocs having funded Matrix from 2014-2017 is utterly unwarranted, and often seems to be rooted in some pretty unpleasant prejudices. Plus both the spec and implementations are all liberally licensed open source - it should be painfully obvious to anyone who actually bothers to look at the protocol that there is no cloak and dagger, however much some folks might wish there to be :|
    - goodSteveramos 3y ago
      Believe me. I do not ‘wish’ Israel to have a thriving grey market for surveillance hacking tools like Pegasus that are used by oppressive regimes around the world. I also do not ‘wish’ for the Israeli government to fund companies like Amdocs who have been accused multiple times of improperly handing over customer data to that government. But those are the facts and so when I am accused of some kind of vague ‘prejudice’ for having my fair suspicions about a telecom company funded in turn by Amdocs i can’t help but feel like I’m taking flak for being over the right target. “The initial project was created inside Amdocs, while building a chat tool called "Amdocs Unified Communications” Are you contradicting the wikipedia article? I have no inside knowledge so if there are inaccuracies on wikipedia it would be great if you could correct them. As an insider, what do you think was Amdoc’s reason for building a whole new chat protocol? Why would they pay big money for decentralization? Why wasn’t Slack or SIP+XMPP good enough?

RadiozRadioz 3y ago

I am surprised they had a Telegram bridge at all, it doesn't really fit in with the other services from an ideological standpoint. Was this used for communicating with people outside the FOSS ecosystem?

Barrin92 3y ago
I don't think the KDE community takes any particular ideological standpoints. After all they also offer a lot of their software like KDE Connect on Windows which I'm very glad for btw, a lot of their stuff has good cross platform support.
hammyhavoc 3y ago
Telegram is more popular than KDE. Sometimes you just need to be where people are. You could argue the same thing about their Facebook Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, VK and Instagram. There's a reason that some FOSS projects succeed whilst others fail. They live and die by their communities.
Saris 3y ago
Tons of people use it, it makes sense to have a bridge

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]