This Week in Matrix 2025-02-21
21.02.2025 16:20 — This Week in Matrix — Thib🔗Matrix Live
🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️
Thib (m.org) reports
The Foundation is at a crossroads. We need to raise an additional $610K to break-even, and more immediately to raise $100K to keep our bridges running.
As a neutral custodian for the specification and much more, the Foundation is key to the success of Matrix. It is time to step up for it.
🔗Dept of Governance ⚖️
Gwmngilfen reports
🔗Announcing the Governing Board Working Groups process
The Governing Board has news! If you have been itching to know how to get involved, we are now ready to get you ... on-Board! 🥁 😀
The Working Groups are the beating heart of the GB - they get the work done. So naturally people have been asking "how do we make one?" and "what is expected of a Working Group?"
🔗Creating a Working Group
The process is fairly simple:
- First, find some people who want to work on the problem - we would suggest at least 3, but the more you have the better, as it shows the level of interest in the issue.
- Second, write down a charter for your Group - this doesn't need to be huge to start with, just a few sentences about what you want to be responsible for and the outcomes you want to achieve.
- Finally, get a Board Member to sponsor you - this means finding a Board Member who agrees with the work you want to do, and will act as your link to the rest of the Board. The #governing-board-office:matrix.org is a great place to start conversations about WGs and look for sponsors. If in doubt, ping me there ( @gwmngilfen:matrix.org ) and I will help if I can.
Once you have that done, the Board Member will discuss it with the rest of the GB, we'll put it to a vote, and if it passes, you're in! (If it doesn't, we'll be sure to pass back what feedback we can about why not).
We would advise making noise about your proposals for Working Groups in the community to rally support and/or new members to get work done. TWIM is a good place for that 😛
🔗Expectations of a Working Group
Working Groups are well named - they work. Some will provide advice & documents on a topic, others may produce code or similar outputs (think, a Docs WG?) but all have work to do. So, obviously you'll want to get on with that.
We also expect that:
Working Groups will have at least a Matrix room to discuss work in asynchronously
they will have regular meetings ("regular" is different for different groups, but we would expect not less than monthly). These could be video or chat meetings.
they take minutes of the meetings - the Board member can help here, but someone should take notes if they are not available.
- These minutes get passed up to the rest of the Board so we can all be kept up to date at a high level
Clearly there are also some longer term things that we expect, like an expectation to work well with other Working Groups, to build consensus for decisions, etc. The GB can help if things need unblocking, of course.
🔗Documentation
We do need a place to record the Working Groups, what exists already, what they do, how you get involved. This will be added to the Matrix.org website SOON™️
🔗Initial Working Groups
All of this is theoretical until we start creating some groups, so .. let's hear your proposals (and I have a few to post in a moment)! Let's get some work done 💪
HarHarLinks announces
🔗New GB Working Groups - call for members
Working Groups are the core of how the Governing Board orchestrates its work. We have some new ones for you to consider (for the first time 🎉)
🔗Website WG (proposed)
The GB is considering a proposal for a Website WG! @HarHarLinks has written a charter regarding how to get work done for the main Matrix website, and has a good initial member list. While this is de-facto work already being done, we'd like to make it official - it's been proposed by @HarHarLinks so if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, register your interest with them!
🔗Events WG (proposed)
The GB is considering a proposal for a Events WG! This would cover CfPs, staffing booths, merch, event tooling (Pretix box, etc) and so on. While this is de-facto work already being done, we'd like to make it official - its fairly detailed charter been proposed by @HarHarLinks so if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, register your interest with them!
Gwmngilfen reports
🔗Ideas for New GB Working Groups
In addition to the in-flight proposals from HarHarLinks, I have a couple of ideas that need input to get started...
🔗Documentation WG (idea)
I think we could benefit from a Documentation Working Group in Matrix. The Spec pages are excellent, but much of the rest of our docs falls to the general website team, and we see a lot of copies of things like https://doc.matrix.tu-dresden.de/en which suggest to me that people aren't finding our docs sufficient?
So, without wanting to downplay the awesome work that has gone before, I think a dedicated Docs group could try to help specialise the various people working on the website, as well as provide a clear place to report issues with our materials. I'm willing to propose this, if you'd like to discuss it (or think it's an awful idea), please reach out to me ( @gwmngilfen:matrix.org )! in #governing-board-office:matrix.org
🔗New User Experience WG (idea)
Another group I'm thinking about is the New User WG - this would be focussed on how we get more people to Matrix, and improve those first few minutes/hours/days in our ecosystem - and how to gather their feedback effectively.
During the Matrix Unconference in Brussels, I hosted a session on this, and in just 45 mins we made 2 pages of ideas, so I think it's a rich area. Outputs would be advice/suggestions to other parts of the ecosystem for how we can make things better for our newer (and especially non-tech) users. I'm willing to propose this, if you'd like to discuss it (or think it's an awful idea), please reach out to me ( @gwmngilfen:matrix.org ) in #governing-board-office:matrix.org
Got ideas of other WGs? Talk to us in #governing-board-office:matrix.org! Onwards!
🔗Dept of Trust & Safety 🤗
Jim announces
An update on changes to the Matrix.org room directory: https://matrix.org/blog/2025/02/curated-room-directories/
🔗Dept of Clients 📱
🔗Element X iOS (website)
A total rewrite of Element-iOS using the Matrix Rust SDK underneath and targeting devices running iOS 16+.
Doug says
- The next release of Element X iOS has an updated Rust SDK and as such, we will no longer support the Sliding Sync proxy - native Simplified Sliding Sync via your homeserver is the only sync option.
- We made huge progress on embedding the Element Call web app into the Element X (rather than loading it from the web) - we are able to participate in calls, and are now just adapting the code to fully support localisation when embedded.
- We have started implementing pills for rooms and events, just as in Element Web. The first step is to replace permalinks rendered in the timeline with these new pills.
- We had a nice little external contribution that fixes @mention suggestions to work from anywhere in your message and not just at the end. Thanks Vickoo 🙌
🔗Element X Android (website)
Android Matrix messenger application using the Matrix Rust SDK and Jetpack Compose.
Benoit reports
Working on several features currently:
- swipe between media: improvement when coming from the pinned Events list. Now merged!
- joining room by alias (can also be called
address)- user interactive verification. It's currently possible to verify your own sessions, it will be possible to verify other users
- fixing bugs! We have fixed a bunch of ANR issue, the first stats from the PlayStore are showing a drop in the ANR occurrences.
- new translations into Norwegian and Turkish. Thanks for all the contributors! As a reminder, anyone can help translating the mobile applications from here: https://localazy.com/p/element/ . Translations are shared between the iOS and Android application.
🔗Dept of SDKs and Frameworks 🧰
🔗matrix-rust-sdk (website)
Next-gen crypto-included SDK for developing Clients, Bots and Appservices; written in Rust with bindings for Node, Swift and WASM
poljar reports
It's been a quieter week, but progress continues! The event cache is receiving its final polish, including performance improvements, as it nears prime time.
The authentication system is also seeing ongoing enhancements, thanks to Kévin Commaille.
Additionally, work has begun on the successor to MSC3061, aiming to allow newly joined users to access the history of encrypted rooms.
🔗Event Cache Updates
- Simplified the flow when resolving a gap (#4691)
- Streamlined back-pagination logic (#4689)
- Implemented lazy-loading for
EventCache(#4632)- Significantly improved reply replacement speed by introducing an index over replies (#4669)
🔗Authentication Improvements
- Removed support for deserializing the old
UserSessionformat that contained theissuer_infofield (#4679)- Adopted the new
GET /auth_metadataMatrix API endpoint (#4673)- Removed the method for authorizing arbitrary scopes (#4664)
🔗Other Notable Changes
- Added a new constructor to
InboundGroupSessionfor easier creation from anm.room_keyevent (#4688)- Renamed snapshot files to reduce filename length, allowing Windows users to work on the codebase again (#4625)
- Enabled history visibility overrides when creating a room (#4682)
- Ensured that paginations and syncs don’t add events to the pinned events timeline (#4645)
🔗Dept of Ops 🛠
🔗synadm (website)
Command line admin tool for Synapse (Matrix homeserver)
jacksonchen666 (they/it) announces
We have released synadm v0.47! This release packs a few features:
- Connection errors to Synapse should be more reasonably small and easy to understand, thanks to #168.
synadm user redactis now added, which redacts a user's messages. Supports local and remote users, but intricate details are up to Synapse (see "Redact all events of a user").- You can filter for empty rooms on the server side in
synadm room listwith--emptyor--not-empty. This is in addition tosynadm room purge-empty- More options were added to
synadm user listto match what Synapse supportssynadm media quarantineandunquarantinenow have the-U/--mxc-uriargument to pass MXC URIs toThat's all in code. There are a few changes in documentation, including the theme, listed on the changelogs.
And of course, a changelog is also available on GitHub. Our room is at #synadm:peek-a-boo.at if you have any questions or other stuff.
🔗matrix-docker-ansible-deploy (website)
Matrix server setup using Ansible and Docker
Slavi says
thanks to Aine of etke.cc, matrix-docker-ansible-deploy now supports FluffyChat Web as an additional Matrix client you can self-host.
To learn more, see our Setting up FluffyChat Web documentation page.
Slavi announces
Thanks to Zepmann, matrix-docker-ansible-deploy now supports bridging to Bluesky via mautrix-bluesky.
To learn more, see our Setting up mautrix-bluesky documentation page.
🔗Dept of Interesting Projects 🛰️
🔗Matrixbird (website)
ahq announces
Matrixbird is an experimental "mail over matrix" idea I've been working on. It supports both traditional email and secure "matrix email" (local and federated) in a unified client.
🔗Matrix Federation Stats
Aine [don't DM] reports
collected by MatrixRooms.info - an MRS instance by etke.cc
As of today,
10771Matrix federateable servers have been discovered by matrixrooms.info,3202(29.7%) of them are publishing their rooms directory over federation. The published directories contain21078rooms.Stats timeline is available on MatrixRooms.info/stats
🔗Dept of Ping
Here we reveal, rank, and applaud the homeservers with the lowest ping, as measured by pingbot, a maubot that you can host on your own server.
🔗#ping:maunium.net
Join #ping:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.
| Rank | Hostname | Median MS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | codestorm.net | 232.5 |
| 2 | bi-vibes.com | 296 |
| 3 | shork.ch | 338 |
| 4 | matrix.sp-codes.de | 483 |
| 5 | computerlie.be | 538.5 |
| 6 | mtest.eyer.life | 770.5 |
| 7 | mgamers.com | 815 |
| 8 | ncat.cafe | 821.5 |
| 9 | felixilef.de | 916.5 |
| 10 | craftingcomrades.net | 968 |
🔗That's all I know
See you next week, and be sure to stop by #twim:matrix.org with your updates!
To learn more about how to prepare an entry for TWIM check out the TWIM guide.
