matrix.to VS gomuks

Happy to see this on HN =). Lunatik’s main author here. AMA.

Please feel welcome to join us on Matrix [1] as well.

[1] https://matrix.to/#/#lunatik:matrix.org

There is this list of 15-minute bugs that should be easy to tackle https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?bug_severity=critical&bug_s...

Also strarting on smaller KDE applications is usually a great way to start, For example the Plasma widgets/applets or KDE games or educational applications.

You can join the New Contributors char room on Matrix to get help with starting out https://matrix.to/#/#new-contributors:kde.org

There's also https://matrix.to/#/#review-requests:nixos.org

Hi, I'm the Thib person mention in this article, and I agree that QA is super important. I can mostly talk about matrix.org, since I have little power over the Element clients. Disclaimer though: I'm technically employed by Element (to make paperwork simpler since I'm France-based, Element has an entity in France, and the Foundation is UK-based), but I'm working for the Foundation full time.

This kind of article is super valuable since it gives us the perspective of a new user. I opened https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix.org/issues/2178 to translate the gripes mentioned in the issue into actionable items for us. I took action on the most urgent one (updating the Try Matrix page), but want to take the time to go beyond the surface symptoms and address the root cause of the other gripes.

On the Foundation side, we're a small but mighty team of four. The website is currently maintained part time by me and a volunteer who is doing an excellent job at it.

As I wrote recently in a blog post "Tracking what works, not people" (https://ergaster.org/posts/2024/01/24-tracking-what-works/), I would love to have the resources to conduct user research and user testing on the website but I unfortunately don't. We deployed privacy-preserving analytics to see where people drop and what confuses them. It's not nearly as good as proper QA and user testing, but that's what we can afford for now.

Overall I'm grateful to the author for documenting their frustration, and even more grateful for reacting constructively to our responses and integrating them in the blog post! One of the strengths of open source is to find and address issues collectively. I consider this blog post to be a good open source contribution.

If people around believe in our mission and want to help us with their brainpower, I invite them to join our "Office of the Matrix.org Foundation" room: https://matrix.to/#/%23foundation-office:matrix.org

For those aligned with our mission and who want to support us financially, the https://matrix.org/support/ page should give you all the information you need to help us out.

https://matrix.to/#/#openbao-general:chat.lfx.linuxfoundatio...

Hi all,

This project release is a long time coming. It was a big uphill battle, and by far my largest endeavor so far. I built it for Sandstorm because I believe in Sandstorm's model, and I wanted to show that there's still life and potential in it. If you're inspired, joining our OpenCollective would be really helpful: https://opencollective.com/sandstormcommunity (keeping in mind that Sandstorm has now moved from its original leadership to a community project https://sandstorm.org/news/2023-11-03-from-io-to-org).

You can also join our mailing list or connect on the fediverse: https://sandstorm.org/community (The IRC link is outdated, we've effectively moved to Matrix for now due to the libera.chat split: https://matrix.to/#/#sandstorm:libera.chat)

Also: I'm open for hire! You can see some of my skills in putting things together in this blog post. I'd love to work in something FOSS or OSM related, but not a requirement. I mostly do Python and Golang, with a bit of Haskell under my belt. Other projects and resume here: https://github.com/orblivion/me

I really appreciate you sharing your concerns, and for all the hope and energy you've put into Matrix to date. Very much to your point, we're not yet in a state where I recommend Matrix to friends and family. Right now I only use it with people in FOSS and other circles where folks are a little more patient with the tech.

Only time will tell, and of course I'm biased as the Matrix.org Foundation's Managing Director, but I think there's good reason to remain hopeful:

The spec continues to evolve with major improvements expected in feature set and performance in the next year as we get to the 2.0 spec release, the Foundation is staffing up and beginning to fundraise, we're on the cusp of holding our first ever community elections to seat a Governing Board, and adoption has continued doubling on an annual basis.

I invite you and anyone else who is invested and/or concerned to join us in the Foundation's new office room – it's a way to get a view into ongoing activities, ask questions, provide direct feedback, and celebrate all the little wins on our way to collective success: https://matrix.to/#/#foundation-office:matrix.org

Cool! Just in case you haven't come across this, we've got a (rather quiet lately) chat that might be useful.

https://matrix.to/#/#usb-rs:matrix.org

The problem with this is that this is just fundamentally untrue. There are plenty of non-Electron apps that are viable. For core functionality of e2ee, messages, exploring directories, sending images, etc, those are available in multiple alternative apps. If you're talking about other integrations like video calling, plugins, and spaces, then you'd be right as I don't know other clients that have those. But, none of those things are really required in the matrix protocol anyways, and those available features in other clients already far surpasses what IRC can do. You don't need these bleeding edge features to have an enjoyable experience on Element, and given the IRC crowd, I would assume they're adverse to bleeding edge anyways. If you want an experience similar to irssi, then you can use gomuks for a superior experience in a familiar(ish) client. So saying Element is the only suitable client implementation is outright false.

There's also a nice terminal client called gomuks.

gomuks is probably the most feature complete one.

gomuks is a command line-based Matrix chat client

I am running my own home server, everyone in my family has an account they use there (the domain is our surname). Non-techy people use it and like it (past the initial setup, since setting up a custom domain requires a few more clicks than :matrix.org account). I am not waiting for the day, though, when they will need to set up a new device without access to the old one.

> I personally haven't met any "real" people who are even aware of Matrix. When I broached it with a non-IT friend, they were actively uninterested in unifying messaging applications as they had "facebook friends" and "whatsapp friends" and interacted with them differently.

I tried to sell it too with the "unify your messaging apps", but this is a wrong selling point to new users. First they need to start using matrix as their messaging app, realize that it works well, including VoIP and video calls. Once trust is there, only then start thinking about using bridges. Because there will be rough edges (e.g. federated voice/video calls do not work).

Because of the way bridges integrate to third-parties, they are not bug-free. Reliability is just not great yet. Maybe except a hosted service, Beeper[1], which is run by people who know most about these bridges and can provide support.

To sum up, I am using Matrix for my family network, and some bridges personally; I am not yet planning to spread the use of bridges beyond myself. Besides the encryption setup, I like the UI a lot. I also use gomuks[2] from time to time, which is a terminal matrix application. I have not stumped into server-side problems.

I am donating monthly to Tulir[3], the most prolific Matrix bridge developer (and, to my knowledge, co-founder of beeper). Because I started using Matrix because of the bridges.

Oh, and I love the Matrix sms bridge[4]. I set it up to see if it works, and I am not going back. It's great.

[1]: https://www.beeper.com/

[2]: https://github.com/tulir/gomuks

[3]: https://github.com/tulir

[4]: https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix