This Week in Matrix

Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

TravisR announces

Earlier in the week matrix.org started requiring authentication to access media, and it looks like most users didn't notice (a good thing)! Smooth rollouts like this are thanks in large part to the developer ecosystem preparing users for the change with code - thank you to everyone who has been working hard at improving how media is shared in Matrix ❤️.

There's always going to be problems which reveal themselves after the deployment happens, and it looks like most of the issues we're tracking have workarounds or patches on the way. If you're seeing errors for images/files, please update your client. Web users may need to refresh the page multiple times before things start working because of how browsers (don't) work. If you're still seeing issues, it may be a bug in your client: please report it to the developers so they can take a look.

Developers, protocol designers, and future MSC writers may also be interested in "Authenticated media & how to ship spec features" in LAB 4 at this year's Matrix Conference in just a couple of weeks! We'll be discussing how such a massive feature (and technically breaking change in the spec) gets designed, developed, and deployed with support from the MSC process - if you're thinking about how to get your idea for a feature out in the hands of users, this talk is for you. The advice should be transferable to features smaller than authenticated media too, hopefully 😇

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Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

TravisR announces

Something we're excited to see is several servers have already enacted their media freeze for unauthenticated media! Matrix.org is doing so on Wednesday, September 4th, 2024 (just a few days away) during UK business hours. Other Synapse admins can enable this freeze on their servers by setting enable_authenticated_media: True in their homeserver.yaml. Admins using other server projects should consult their documentation, though please note that some projects are actively working on adding relevant support.

For those interested in statistics, matrix.org is seeing about 80% of requests being authenticated so far. We anticipate this number will rise before Wednesday, but not significantly.

For more information on the media freeze, check out our blog post: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticated-media/

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Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Josh Simmons (he/they) says

The Foundation has updated its policy for accepting upstream contributions to our projects. We no longer require the use of "real" or "legal" names as part of the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO). We thank the community members who reached out to let us know that our policy was a barrier for them, and we are excited to welcome contributions from people who were previously excluded.

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Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Josh Simmons (he/they) reports

I’m pleased to report I've been busily onboarding the elected Governing Board members, and we've already started having important conversations about how we continue to move the Foundation forward to support the Matrix ecosystem.

This week Matthew and I published a blog post, significantly informed by community conversations and work with the Governing Board, on a process to define a governance framework for the projects we steward. Of note, in this post we are also drawing a line in the sand and making it clear: some projects, like the spec, test suites, SDKs, and shared cryptographic libraries, are so important that they require ongoing stewardship, under a permissive open source licence, by an organisation that is accountable to the ecosystem. To put a point on it: the Foundation will seek to fund and coordinate maintenance and development of core projects even if faced with a competing fork.

Learn more in our blog post. We’d love to hear from you as we work together to update our project governance, and encourage you to reach out to your representatives on the Governing Board along the way.

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Dept of Spec 📜

Authenticated Media

TravisR says

Progress on authenticated media continues! As of today, beta.matrix.org has now frozen its media to allow client and server developers, as well as homeserver owners, to test how their stuff responds when a media freeze is in place. This milestone brings us one step closer to matrix.org itself freezing unauthenticated media, described in more detail on the blog: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticated-media/

The happy path for interacting with beta.matrix.org should be:

1. Log in or register a new account
2. Note that media from before today (August 7th) loaded fine
3. Upload something new
4. Still loads fine (including over federation)

If you run into issues or bugs, let us know in the #matrix-client-developers:matrix.org or #homeservers-dev:matrix.org rooms on Matrix. We're around to help make this as smooth of a transition as possible!

Weekly spec update

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

New MSCs:

• MSC4175: Profile field for user time zone

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

No new MSCs entered FCP this week.

Accepted MSCs:

• MSC4163: Make ACLs apply to EDUs

Closed MSCs:

No MSCs were closed this week.

Spec Updates

If you are a client or homeserver developer, make sure you read up on the upcoming authenticated media!

Apart from that the spec team has been busy combing through the general spec backlog. Identifying MSCs which appear stuck waiting for SCT input is particularly helpful - drop some links in Office of the Matrix Spec Core Team with a description of how it appears stuck.

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Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4174: webpush push kind
• MSC4173: test pusher

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• MSC4163: Make ACLs apply to EDUs (merge)

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3464: Allow Users to Post on Behalf of Other Users

Spec Updates

It's another week, and there's been steady progress on a few MSCs. Other than those listed above, there was a partial implementation of MSC4133: Support for custom profile fields for Synapse. Personally I find the prospect of finally being able to attach arbitrary profile information to users. Very exciting!

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Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib (m.org) announces

The Matrix Conference 2024 now has a schedule!!

With more than 60 very high quality proposals, it's been difficult to select talks that would make it to the conference. We are thrilled to announce the schedule of the conference, and we're looking forward to listen to that fantastic line up tell us about the future of Matrix, Matrix in the public sector, Matrix in the wild, or the social impact of Matrix!

Check out the full schedule at https://2024.matrix.org/schedule/

If you're an organisation and want to get some visibility in the Matrix ecosystem, we have a few sponsorship packages left at https://2024.matrix.org/sponsor/.

Don't forget to book your ticket to attend. Head to https://2024.matrix.org/register/ and tell us whether you want merch or not in addition to your ticket!

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Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4171: Service members

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3572: Relation aggregation cleanup
• MSC1840: Typed rooms

Spec Updates

We have just one MSC this week from the Tuesday pings. Get it below.

• MSC4163: Make ACLs apply to EDUs (merge)
  • There is one outstanding concern on this MSC for improved clarity, however the author appears to have already addressed this point. Looks like it's only a matter of time before FCP beigns on this one.
  • Requires 1 more tick from the SCT (Started the week needing 6)

Once again, thank you to everyone who is writing PRs against matrix-spec, especially Johennes and Kladki who combined have had lots of PRs (and MSCs!) created and merged recently. Cheers!

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Matrix Live

Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} says

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

MSC Status

New MSCs:

• MSC4170: 403 error responses for profile APIs
• MSC4169: Backwards-compatible redaction sending using /send
• MSC4168: Update m.space.* state on room upgrade
• MSC4167: Copy bans on room upgrade
• MSC4166: Specify /turnServer response when no TURN servers are available
• MSC4165: Remove own power level on deactivation
• MSC4164: Leave all rooms on deactivation
• MSC4163: Make ACLs apply to EDUs

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• MSC1840: Typed rooms (close)

Accepted MSCs:

• MSC4159: Remove the deprecated name attribute on HTML anchor elements

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

Spec Updates

Lots of new MSCs this week - thank you to everyone proposing new ideas or clarifications to the spec!

We have just one MSC this week from the Tuesday pings. Get it below.

• MSC3572: Relation aggregation cleanup (disposition: close)
  • Since this MSC was written, it has been shown that having (unstable) prefixes in the unsigned field of events is useful. Hence the general consensus from the SCT has been to close this MSC as it stands.
  • Needs 1 checkmark from the SCT (started the week needing 2).

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Matrix Live

Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib (m.org) announces

The enthusiasm around The Matrix Conference is simply mind-boggling! In less than 2 weeks, the project leads of state-sponsored deployments, key digital rights activists and the Matrix community at large sent us more than 60 high-quality proposals 🤯

We're really excited to help the key players in the ecosystem meet in Berlin, and I can't wait to see the fantastic talks people are working on. While the team works on producing a proper schedule for it, organisations that want to increase their brand awareness in the Matrix Ecosystem can still sponsor the conference. Let your marketing department know, pass them our sponsorship brochure!

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