matrix.to VS matrix-doc

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

Group voice and video calls are not E2EE, and use Jitsi, but this is expected to change with Native Group VoIP Signalling.

DMs in Matrix are always E2EE, and MSC3401: Native Group VoIP Signalling means there should be E2EE in group calls.

From my perspective, the really exciting thing about this that it works equally well in mobile web browsers as well as desktop web - clicking on a link on Mobile Safari should Do The Right Thing without having to install anything.

Moreover, because it's built on Matrix, MSC3401 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/matthew/group-...) means that we'll finally have decentralised cascading video/voice conferences once the SFU (selective forwarding unit) component is added into the mix. So, for instance, users on the same homeserver will get their video feeds relayed locally with minimal latency... and then users on another remote homeserver will also get mixed locally with minimal latency, trunking the two together. If the link dies or one homeserver dies, the conference will keep going - i.e. precisely the same semantics as normal Matrix.

What metadata does Matrix protect? Encrypted state events still aren't a thing for example https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/3414 This means that server admins know what groups a given account is a member of, private or not, and they also have a general idea of what the topic of said groups are, even if they're encrypted. This would be a problem for groups about sensitive personal medical issues, like a private HIV survivors or Alcoholics Anonymous group.

The protocol itself is flexible and can be changed through spec change proposals on their Github. They're currently working on implementing threads, and they recently implemented spaces, which functionally combine the concept of Discord servers and server folders. They can also be nested.

At the moment this only works with Jitsi. It will be implementet soon with MSC3401

Something we're trying to do about this on the Matrix side is MSC2716 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/matthew/msc271...) - the ability to import archives of existing content into Matrix, and thus 'lock it open' and decentralise it for posterity: as long as one of the servers participating in that room stays alive (and the room is set up with infinite data retention, obviously) then the conversation will live on forever. (That MSC is also well worth a look for those interested in how Matrix works under the hood; MSC2716 was a surprisingly tricky problem to solve but it's basically finished now!).

Our first step will be to import all of Gitter's archives into Matrix - but we're then planning to add MSC2716 to all the existing Matrix bridges so that folks can use it to liberate chat history from Discord and Slack if desired, and avoid it getting paywalled/siloed/lost/held-hostage forever. We're also expecting to do USENET, mailing lists, forums, public IRC channels which have explicitly opted into logging... and generally archive as much possible in an open decentralised fashion, and ensure that gatekeepers can't lock up and blackhole info going forwards. After all, information longs to be free :)

by 'broken links' i guess you mean https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/3628? it's a bug on the new spec website; we're working on it.