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France Enters the Matrix

389 pointsby l2dyabout 6 years ago

14 comments

O1111OOOabout 6 years ago
In my small bubble of tech news, France has popped up a few times. Found out recently that they are officially[0] using the privacy-respecting Qwant search engine. Several weeks ago, I learned that they have planned obsolescence laws[1] which makes them a pioneer in this area (from what I understand).<p>There&#x27;s also an active non-profit organization using FOSS to create alternative, privacy-respecting, solutions to Google products (framasoft[2]). I mention this last one because I haven&#x27;t come across a similar major undertaking (or similar mindset) in too many other countries.<p>Now they are evaluating Matrix for their communications needs. I can understand the importance of countries, nowadays, not relying too much on the services of companies tied to a specific country (namely the US) but I wonder what else is different about France? What else are they engaged in re: FOSS, privacy?<p>Or am I reading too much into this?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Qwant" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Qwant</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-europe-42615378" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;world-europe-42615378</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;framasoft.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;framasoft.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a>
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birracervezaabout 6 years ago
I like the idea behind Matrix, but hosting it is really a pain. I&#x27;ve given up on it until it&#x27;s a simple `docker-compose up -d` away from running a full instance.<p>To get back on topic, France has really got its FOSS movement moving. There are a TON of Mastodon and Peertube instances located there. It&#x27;s admirable.
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zamalekabout 6 years ago
<i>&gt; Because Matrix is inherently decentralized, no single server &quot;owns&quot; the conversations; all traffic is replicated across all of the involved servers. [...] Matrix is more like Git than XMPP, SIP, IRC, or many other traditional communication protocols.</i><p>The Matrix protocol is well worth the read. JSON-LD is a bit of a nightmare to work with, but the gist of it is a solid concept; it has drastically changed my approach to software design.
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aboutrubyabout 6 years ago
The FOSDEM video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2019&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;matrix_french_state&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2019&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;matrix_french_state&#x2F;</a>
Forboabout 6 years ago
I finally got around to brushing off the year&#x27;s worth of dust that had accumulated on my Matrix account and signed in to Riot on my phone, as well as their web client. I was pretty pleased with how easy it was to connect to a Freenode channel. So far it seems to be a decent experience, I&#x27;m looking forward to using it over the next little bit.
fermigierabout 6 years ago
Things are still going strong for open source in France (despite de occasional setbacks) since France was rated in 2008 the no 1 country in the world in terms of open source adoption by Georgiatech:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20090424052832&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redhat.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;where-is-open-source&#x2F;activity&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20090424052832&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redhat...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20090520231136&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redhat.com&#x2F;f&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;OSSI_Research.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20090520231136&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.redhat...</a><p>More info (in French): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cnll.fr&#x2F;media&#x2F;etude-2017.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cnll.fr&#x2F;media&#x2F;etude-2017.pdf</a> (with figures for the FR, DE, UK and rest of EU markets on slide 4).
sublupoabout 6 years ago
Recently I&#x27;m hearing more about Matrix. Does anyone have any input as to the pros and cons of Matrix vs xmpp?
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wcoenenabout 6 years ago
&gt; the 0.99 version of the home server code is ACME-capable and can get a certificate directly from Let&#x27;s Encrypt;<p>How does this work? I assume a home server doesn&#x27;t have a public DNS name, so what is used as the subject of the certificate then?
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denart2203about 6 years ago
Is anyone else increasingly uncomfortable with the &quot;we&#x27;ll solve the certificate problem by deferring to centralized registrars that surely keep their keys private from state actors.&quot; I mean, this is potentially not a risk if there is a recognizable way of communicating low-bandwidth fingerprints of the next encryption level, like ZRTP verification on voice. But note how WebRTC has done the same thing? And efforts to solve the problem are talked about and then, somehow, nothing ever happens with the standards.<p>It&#x27;s enough to drive one paranoid.
MayeulCabout 6 years ago
Matthew&#x27;s talk at FOSDEM [0] was really nice. I&#x27;ve been using Matrix (mainly trough Riot) for a while, and encouraged my technically-minded friends to jump on it.<p>However, I would like to get my family to use something else than WhatsApp (which I refuse to use). I&#x27;m planning to do so, once I can sort out the following:<p>- Riot is nice if you have a lot of high-density rooms (Fractal&#x27;s &quot;Banquet&quot; use-case [1]), but not really there in terms of UX for small rooms with my family members<p>- I would like to self-host if possible. However, I need to ensure that the server is reliable enough, and synapse seems to be quite resource-hungry.<p>Regarding the first issue, it seems that France&#x27;s Tchap would solve it nicely, from what we were shown at FOSDEM. Unfortunately, the Readme in their repo is still Riot&#x27;s, and it would seem that I have to build it myself [2]. I&#x27;ll look a bit more into that nevertheless, and it should improve by June, from the article.<p>Regarding the second one, someone recently linked to this Gnome mailing list archive [3] where (in the reply) Matthew details a bit more his (then) long-terms plans for homeservers. Having one homeserver per device would solve most of my issues pretty neatly. I am not sure how far it is in the roadmap. I am also curious to know what&#x27;s the status on that specific discussion topic: I was discussing just this the otherday on #postmarketos-offtopic:matrix.org [4]. I was interested in having a unique matrix daemon on a phone operating system to provide push support, maybe as well as a Matrix protocol broker.<p>Otherwise, for self-hosting with ~10-200 users, it looks like synapse has shed a lot of weight recently, and other homeservers implementations seem to be picking up steam, so we&#x27;ll see how that goes. I am not sure how synapse would handle a dynamic IP<i></i><p>For now, my gripes with the ecosystem are the following:<p>- There doesn&#x27;t seem to be easy ways of migrating: accounts, homeservers (including address and implementation, ex. migrating to&#x2F;from synapse, Dendrite, Ruma...).<p>- No easy way to manage multiple identities: work, home, etc. Multi-account clients or community-bound identities could probably help solve this. Ideally, it would be the later, and my account would be on multiple homeservers (backup plan for availability).<p>- The search functionality is really lacking on most clients. No way to search my own messages, or at a specific time, in a specific community, etc.<p>It&#x27;s also kind of fun to have both COI (chat over IMAP) and Matrix making the front page at the same time :)<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2019&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;matrix_french_state&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2019&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;matrix_french_state&#x2F;</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.gnome.org&#x2F;tbernard&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;16&#x2F;banquets-and-barbecues&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.gnome.org&#x2F;tbernard&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;16&#x2F;banquets-and-bar...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dinsic-pim&#x2F;tchap-android" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;dinsic-pim&#x2F;tchap-android</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mail.gnome.org&#x2F;archives&#x2F;desktop-devel-list&#x2F;2017-September&#x2F;msg00047.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mail.gnome.org&#x2F;archives&#x2F;desktop-devel-list&#x2F;2017-Sept...</a><p>[4]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;matrix.to&#x2F;#&#x2F;!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org&#x2F;$15496441549459ctuml:librepush.net?via=fam-ribbers.com&amp;via=matrix.org&amp;via=disroot.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;matrix.to&#x2F;#&#x2F;!VTQfOrQIBniIdCuMOq:matrix.org&#x2F;$15496441...</a><p><i></i>A bit off-topic, but my registrar doesn&#x27;t provide an API to update the DNS records on their servers. As a workaround, would there be a free dynamic DNS with an API out there? I don&#x27;t care what the address would look like, as I would just use it as a CNAME record.
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Andrew_nenakhovabout 6 years ago
The only advantage Matrix currently has comes from it&#x27;s relative obscurity. It has ONE implementation. Once things start inevitably emerge, it&#x27;ll run into all the same problems that truly distributed protocols have.
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qwerty456127about 6 years ago
Does it support conversation trees like we do here on HN? Does it let you edit your messages?
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xvilkaabout 6 years ago
I wish they stop wasting time by developing this Electron abomination and focus more on the native and mobile clients.
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pmoriartyabout 6 years ago
I haven&#x27;t tried Matrix yet, but I&#x27;ve tried some other chat platforms like Telegram and Discord, and was really disappointed with them compared to IRC.<p>I had to use their closed-source, bloated, binary blob GUI clients, couldn&#x27;t logs the channels I was in (and so relied on having to log in to their servers to get backlogs, which was super annoying), and needed invites to get in to channels.<p>Apart from the superior multimedia capabilities of these clients, I saw absolutely no advantage of them over IRC clients (which could do useful things like logs all mentioned URLs and mentions of my nick to separate, logged tabs, and which I could run from the terminal and even from within Emacs).<p>I really hope Matrix is better in this regard, and I&#x27;m trying to keep an open mind, but so far attempts to create next generation chat services have been really underwhelming.
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