[HN Gopher] Taking FOSDEM online via Matrix
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Taking FOSDEM online via Matrix
Author : neiljohnson
Score : 196 points
Date : 2021-01-04 11:47 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (matrix.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (matrix.org)
| dexwell wrote:
| Matrix has such incredible potential, but is still missing a
| mainstream-focused IM client with a beautiful UI and appealing
| UX. If there are any Swift devs looking for a passion/side
| project like this, hit me up (link in bio)!
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| You don't have to like it, but how is Element not mainstream-
| focused in its objectives?
| dexwell wrote:
| Element looks and feels more like a replacement for Discord
| or Slack than WhatsApp or Messenger. My intention is to build
| an alternative to the latter two in terms of UI/UX. Something
| your grandma could use, like Signal, but decentralized and
| with features like quote replies and message editing.
|
| The goal would be to build a beautiful, private, secure,
| delightful instant messaging app that happens to run on
| Matrix, rather than building a Matrix client period. It'd
| still allow power users to do stuff like federation, but
| would by default abstract techie/Matrix concepts like
| homeservers, rooms, and encryption keys.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| The "IM" part through me off, as I don't associate that
| with "sms style" as I might call Signal or WhatsApp.
| lifty wrote:
| Wouldn't https://nio.chat qualify?
| dexwell wrote:
| I've actually had a pleasant chat with the developer of Nio
| regarding working together, but we ended up deciding it's
| better to work on separate projects.
|
| Nio is still in very early stages; the developer plans to
| refactor most of the app and couldn't commit to a specific
| timeline or direction for it. On top of that, my vision for a
| client includes spinning up a (privacy-focused) business and
| later expanding to web, Android, and PCs.
| mxuribe wrote:
| My favorite client is still Element, but I'll admit to not
| really being a "mainstream-focused" user. But, I have dabbled a
| little in Fluffy Chat [https://fluffychat.im], and am
| encouraged that it might fit the need for many lay users...At
| least from what I've seen so far (it is still a work in
| progress, though quite usable).
| mschuetz wrote:
| I don't like it, at least not Element. It pops up 3(!) message
| boxes at every single login (and I have to login every time
| because it doesn't remember logins) with no apparent option to
| permanently disable them.
| bregma wrote:
| This won't help with the Friday Beer SIG.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I guess it will be first FOSDEM where everyone can fit on the
| rooms without missing the last 10 minutes of the previous talk.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| I will never understand why they don't schedule the talks with
| gaps in between them.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's a lot of pressure when scheduling events to try to
| maximize the number of sessions accepted and given. But,
| yeah, the last time I was at FOSDEM, I decided to pretty much
| hang out in specific devrooms and it was a much better
| experience than trying to run from session to session.
| ognarb wrote:
| Last year I attended FOSDEM not for the talks but for
| meeting people, the social events and the stickers. It was
| fun event and I watched a few talk that I wanted to watch
| after FOSDEM.
| ghaff wrote:
| Definitely for meeting people. Also recorded some
| podcasts. Haven't attended any of the _formal_ social
| events for years though. The event 's grown too big for
| that sort of thing to be pleasant for me.
| oAlbe wrote:
| Do you mind if I ask you what those podcasts are?
| ghaff wrote:
| My current one is Innovate @Open. Most of the content I
| recorded at FOSDEM was for a series on whether open
| source was inevitable but I also did a couple standalone
| episodes.
| Reventlov wrote:
| << folks can jump on board and participate via their own servers,
| clients, bridges, bots etc >>
|
| Last time I checked, there was only one server really developped,
| not lagging behind, did that change recently ?
| the_duke wrote:
| Sibling comments already mention that this is about custom
| instances and bridging. Matrix is an open network, you can
| participate with your own server.
|
| But also note that there is a very actively developed new
| (official) server implementation called Dendrite. [1]
|
| It's somewhere between alpha and beta.
|
| Dendrite also has some experimental support for peer to peer.
| [2]
|
| [1] https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite
|
| [2] https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix
| est31 wrote:
| I think this refers to server instances instead of server
| implementations.
| Arathorn wrote:
| It does - the point is that anyone can spin up their own
| Matrix server (or pick an existing one) and get involved;
| they don't have to use the fosdem.org one.
|
| Separately, in terms of implementations: Dendrite is usable
| these days, albeit beta:
| https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/08/dendrite-is-entering-beta,
| and meanwhile Synapse is stable. Conduit (https://conduit.rs)
| is making progress on federation (and works for simple use
| cases), and Construct (https://github.com/matrix-
| construct/construct) exists too.
| softinio wrote:
| Great to see Matrix progress. Big fan of Matrix me for sure.
|
| Personal opinion as a frequent conference attendee, I do not like
| pre-recorded talks.
|
| I see why they are doing it, but I think its at the expense of
| conference experience.
|
| There will be less motivation to be there to watch when you can
| view online later.
| motiejus wrote:
| I have set up synapse myself a few months ago for my personal
| domain. I am a happy user so, have been bridging my different
| chat applications through it.
|
| There is one caveat: looks like "agreeing on how to do video" is
| not a Matrix standard; it's in the UI configuration or "widgets",
| which means only matrix/element combo is "properly" supported
| (with caveats).
|
| Has anyone had success running video calls over Matrix without
| Element? Is there any movement on the protocol side?
|
| Extending to this thread, will non-element applications have
| reasonable support for watching (video) fosdem?
| pantalaimon wrote:
| > There is one caveat: looks like "agreeing on how to do video"
| is not a Matrix standard; it's in the UI configuration or
| "widgets", which means only matrix/element combo is "properly"
| supported (with caveats).
|
| Sounds like XMPP all over again.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| > Sounds like XMPP all over again.
|
| At least XMPP is community-driven.
| mromanuk wrote:
| > Sounds like XMPP all over again.
|
| It's different, it's addressed here:
|
| https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-the-difference-between-
| matri...
|
| We think of Matrix and XMPP as being quite different; at its
| core Matrix can be thought of as an eventually consistent
| global JSON database with an HTTP API and pubsub semantics -
| whilst XMPP can be thought of as a message passing protocol.
| You can use them both to build chat systems; you can use them
| both to build pubsub systems; each comes with different
| tradeoffs. Matrix has a deliberately extensive 'kitchen sink'
| baseline of functionality; XMPP has a deliberately minimal
| baseline set of functionality. If XMPP does what you need it
| to do, then we're genuinely happy for you! Meanwhile, rather
| than competing, an XMPP Bridge like Skaverat's xmpptrix beta
| or jfred's matrix-xmpp-bridge or Matrix.org's own purple-
| matrix has potential to let both environments coexist and
| make the most of each other's benefits.
|
| The whole area of XMPP vs Matrix is quite subjective. Rather
| than fighting over which open interoperable communication
| standard works the best, we should just collaborate and
| bridge everything together. The more federation and
| interoperability the better.
| Arathorn wrote:
| Agreeing how to do 1:1 voice and video is very much part of
| Matrix's spec: it's right here:
| https://matrix.org/docs/spec/client_server/r0.6.1#module-voi...
|
| For multiway calls, we currently embed Jitsi as a Widget - but
| widgets themselves are also (almost) part of the spec - they're
| MSC1236 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/1236).
|
| Element may be the only client that implements widgets so far,
| but we expect that to change once MSC1236 finally gets merged
| into the spec. Meanwhile, "ability to iframe random content
| into a chatroom" is a pretty useful thing, and solves the whole
| video conferencing thing fairly nicely.
|
| Finally, in the longer term, we still plan to implement native
| voice/video conferencing in Matrix as per
| https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/matthew/msc235...
| - but for now we'd rather focus on polishing the messaging bits
| of Matrix.
| flyx86 wrote:
| > Has anyone had success running video calls over Matrix
| without Element?
|
| fwiw if you use the Jitsi widget, you can share the URL to your
| Jitsi room with anyone and they do not need Element or Matrix
| to join.
|
| The whole voice/video thing is a design problem as protocols
| like Matrix or XMPP are designed for non-realtime
| communication, while voice/video is very much realtime. You
| cannot possibly federate a video stream, so Matrix or XMPP can,
| by design, only supply the routing (i.e. connecting the people
| who want to participate in a realtime chat) and the
| participants then need to agree on some server/software combo
| that provides the actual video conferencing.
| motiejus wrote:
| The Matrix clients I have tried have "call via audio" and
| "call with video" buttons available in convenient places.
|
| > fwiw if you use the Jitsi widget, you can share the URL to
| your Jitsi room with anyone and they do not need Element or
| Matrix to join.
|
| I would like my grandma to click a green "phone" button and
| answer my call. I would like my grandma to be able to issue a
| call for me.
|
| > and the participants then need to agree on some
| server/software combo that provides the actual video
| conferencing.
|
| Since the button is in a very convenient place, I would
| expect the integration to be a bit deeper than "hope the
| client understands the invite"; it's tricky to make the
| clients without a spec.
|
| It would have been nicer if this were documented better/more
| obviously, so we know what to expect if we want video calls
| to work across different UIs.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| We had a wonderful all-free-software NixCon 2020 a few months ago
| (with live talks via Jitsi for talker but not audience for better
| networking topology). All the code is in
| https://github.com/nixcon/nixcon-video-infra.
|
| It's probably too close to FOSDOM for the Element crew to hop on
| the Nix bandwagon for this project, alas, but I look forward to
| seeing the FOSDEM effort and and ours cross-pollinate in the
| future!
| Arathorn wrote:
| very cool - thanks for the pointer :) There seems to be a lot
| of Nix / Matrix crossover, although for hosting the Matrix bits
| of FOSDEM we'll be using Debian this time (especially given the
| crazy tight timeline).
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Indeed there is! Yes the crazy tight timeline indeed
| justifies it. We'll just get you all off Debian by next
| year's :).
| sudhirkhanger wrote:
| Matrix is amazing but even as a programmer I have no idea what
| their Security and Privacy page means. If it is meant for masses
| then average Joe should be able to understand it.
| capableweb wrote:
| Links to the pages you're referring to?
|
| I found their Privacy Policy surprisingly approachable
| (https://matrix.org/legal/privacy-notice). Maybe because I've
| read through tons of policies before, but theirs seem to use
| very easy language, even for someone who's not a native English
| speaker.
|
| Could not find any page who's title is just "Security".
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