This Week in Matrix

🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Quentin Gliech reports

This week we released Matrix Authentication Service 0.13.0!

This is a big release, as we haven't done one since September.

It is fixing a lot of small issues, but here are a few of the big highlights:

• The email verification has been completely reworked, meaning that accounts don't require a valid email address on them anymore! They are still required for open password registrations, but MAS won't nag you anymore to add an email to your account.
• No more spurious logouts when consuming a refresh token! That was a recurring annoyance for people using Element X in poor network conditions.
• It now reliably provisions users to Synapse! Sometimes, MAS would just stop provisioning new sessions if, for some reason, it lost connections to Postgres. This is a thing of the past, as now MAS has a reliable job queue.
• New translations! MAS is now available in Czech, Dutch, Estonian, English, French, German, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Swedish, and Ukrainian. If you'd like to help MAS get translated to your language, head out to our Localazy project
• Better support for non-OIDC upstream OAuth 2.0 providers. Support for 'social login' options like Google or Sign-in with Apple went from 'good' to 'great', with many UI improvements.

Upgrading should be as easy as grabbing the latest Docker image or the pre-built binaries, restarting the service and voilà!

Feel free to stop by #matrix-auth:matrix.org to join in on the discussion and if you encounter a bug make sure to report it here.

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🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib (m.org) announces

FOSDEM was a huge success for the Matrix.org Foundation and community this year again!

• 🍕60 pizzas and an uncountable amount of drinks at the Fringe event
• 👕 100 t-shirts sold at the booth on the first day!!
• 🧑‍🏫 A completely packed devroom
• 🤝 Many great conversations at the booth

Shout out to Workadventure, Nordeck and Famedly who sponsored the Fringe Event and kept us refreshed and fed. And a huge thanks to everybody who showed up at the booth either to staff it or to say a kind word, bring constructive criticism, or have a casual conversation.

A more detailed wrap up post will be published this week. In the meantime, I’m leaving FOSDEM with a sense that we are doing the right thing, going in the right direction, and that people notice. I'm looking forward to meeting you all again, as well as those who couldn't make it to FOSDEM!

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This week we tried publishing TWIM on a Monday, but people seem to enjoy reading their Matrix news during the weekend. We will get back to publishing TWIM on Fridays!

🔗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:

• MSC4256: RFC 9420 MLS mode Matrix
• MSC4255: Bulk Profile Updates

MSCs in Proposed Final Comment Period:

• MSC3765: Rich text in room topics
• MSC3266: Room summary API
• MSC3757: Restricting who can overwrite a state event
• MSC4183: Additional Error Codes for submitToken endpoint
• MSC2965: OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server Metadata discovery

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• MSC4239: Room version 11 as the default room version (merge)
• MSC4133: Extending User Profile API with Key:Value Pairs (merge)
  • FCP currently blocked due to an ongoing discussion.

Accepted MSCs:

• MSC4213: Remove server_name parameter from join and knock endpoints

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3975: rel_type for Replies
  • Closed by the MSC author.

🔗Spec Updates

Quite a flurry of activity in spec-land this week, as you can see from the above! MSC4133: Extending User Profile API with Key:Value Pairs moved into final comment period. While it still has one outstanding concern as of today, hopefully that can be worked out in the near future.

We also had a newly accepted MSC; MSC4213: Remove server_name parameter from join and knock endpoints. A small change, but a nice clean up to the spec.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's involved, and those that are only just getting started! The more the merrier.

Continue reading…

🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Events and Talks 🗣️

🔗Matrix@FOSDEM 2025

As a reminder Matrix will again be present at FOSDEM this year!

As always, FOSDEM is free to attend and will happen at the 1. and 2. of February. Additionally we will have a fringe event on the 31st of January. You can find more information in the "Matrix in full force at FOSDEM" blog post.

Additionally please be aware that the Health and Safety Policy for the fringe event will be the same as the one of the Matrix Conference. Extremely briefly: You need to wear a mask while indoors, except while eating and drinking.

🔗Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} reports

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:

• MSC4253: Modifying or rejecting accepted MSCs
• MSC4252: Extensible Events modification: State event handling
• MSC4250: Authenticated media v2 (Cookie authentication for Client-Server API)

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• MSC4213: Remove server_name parameter from join and knock endpoints (merge)

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

MSCs in Proposed Final Comment Period:

• MSC4133: Extending User Profile API with Key:Value Pairs
• MSC3765: Rich text in room topics
• MSC3266: Room summary API
• MSC4239: Room version 11 as the default room version
• MSC3757: Restricting who can overwrite a state event
• MSC4183: Additional Error Codes for submitToken endpoint

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3575: Sliding Sync (aka Sync v3)
  • Superseded by MSC4186: Simplified Sliding Sync
• [WIP] MSC4097: Interactions between media redirection and authentication
  • Replaced by spec-independent approaches.

🔗Spec Updates

As suggested from folks in the TWIM room, the above status now contains MSCs that are currently in proposed Final Comment Period. The hope is that this directs attention to MSCs that are close to being either merged/closed.

Let me know what you think!

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🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

🔗Governing Board (website)

The Governing Board is an advisory board that is made up of elected representatives from all across the Matrix ecosystem.

HarHarLinks says

I'm excited to share some quick news from the governing board today! Over the holidays around the new year, we finished the committee chair elections and congratulate:

• Bram and Sumner, chair and vice chair of the Governance committee,
• Sumner and Nico, chair and vice chair of the Community committee,
• Robin and Kevin, chair and vice chair of the Finance committee,
• J.B. and Nico, chair and vice chair of the Trust & Safety committee!

This paves the way for the committees to start taking up work while at the same time the governing board as a whole also finalises the processes around working groups so we can onboard all of you!

We look forward to sharing another update soon, and Matrix @ FOSDEM is also on the horizon, where attendees will be able to meet a good handful of governing board members face to face! For any questions, feedback, or discussion with/about the governing board, join our #governing-board-office:matrix.org!

Until next time!

🔗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:

• There were no new MSCs this week.

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• No MSCs were accepted this week.

Closed MSCs:

• No MSCs were closed/rejected this week.

🔗Spec Updates

It may seem quiet from the stats above, but there's actually been a healthy amount of activity across various MSCs this week!

MSC3266: Room summary API had FCP proposed, which moves this long-awaited MSC significantly closer to being accepted. This MSC allows clients to get a quick preview of a room before joining it, which is useful in all sorts of scenarios (see the MSC for a list!). There's still a fair amount of feedback to get through, but much of it is small clarifying comments. Exciting to see this one move forward!

MSC4133: Extending User Profile API with Key:Value Pairs has also been moving forward, with the Synapse implementation in active review by the maintainers, and all concerns on the MSC (currently) having been resolved this week.

There's plenty of activity on other MSCs as authors work to update them. Also a huge thanks again to those working on the spec text itself. Multiple PRs against the matrix-spec repo have been opened following the holidays, all making the spec better for everyone. Thank you!

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🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Matthew reports

The 2024 Matrix Holiday Special: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-special-2024/

🔗Dept of Clients 📱

🔗SchildiChat (website)

SchildiChat is a fork of Element for Android and Desktop, that used to focus on UI changes such as message bubbles and a unified chat list, but now also provides some additional tweaks and community-driven features that may not be on the roadmap for the upstream clients.

SpiritCroc says

Over the holidays, I added two new (old) features to SchildiChat Next (our Element X Android fork) that I've been missing since switching to the new codebase.

First, inline images and custom emotes are now rendered again, so you don't miss out when users on other clients or certain bridges send these. If you prefer not having images rendered in text message, you can also disable them via a setting, in order to render the fallback text instead - rather than not rendering anything at all as done previously.

Second, I added back the functionality to fetch and render previews for links found in text messages, so you have a better idea what to expect before clicking them. For now, this is an experimental setting, so remember to enable it first if you want to try it out once it lands in the next release.

Continue reading…

🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

🔗Community Year In Review 2024

Nico announces

So, how was your year? NO! DON'T TELL ME NOW! But read on!

Some might remember the year in review for 2023 or 2022, well, this year is still 2024 and I decided to do another one!

If you don't remember, here is the gist of it: It is a room, where you can post about what you did, experienced or otherwise found interesting in 2024. You can also give some predictions for 2025, if you are so bold! Then, on the 31st, I will compose those into a blog post and you can read what others had to say! Now, the exact dates are a bit muddy, last time I was late and there is no guarantee I won't be late this time, but you have until the 30st to compose something you want to share.

There are no exact restrictions on what projects can participate or that what you share has to be a project, but we try to ring out the year with positive vibes from the community in general. Please also try to look at the overall year, if you just want to report on the week, well, there is something called "This Week in Matrix" for that!

Now, you probably are asking the important question, where is that room? Well, you can guess it from last years alias, but for everyone else:

Join #year-in-2024:neko.dev!

Have a good one, merry christmas and see you next year!

Part time reporter, Nico

PS: If you want examples, check out https://blog.neko.dev/posts/matrix-year-in-review-2022.html or https://blog.neko.dev/posts/matrix-year-in-review-2023.html

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🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Matthew reports

Last week US Senators Wyden (D) and Schmitt (R) wrote an open letter to the US Department of Defense encouraging them to adopt Matrix more widely, rather than wasting money on unencrypted, centralised or closed systems. The letter also reveals a whole bunch of info at the end about the US Navy's Matrix deployments. This feels like a huge step change forwards - not only is the FBI encouraging citizens to use end-to-end-encryption in the wake of realisations that the public telephone network is insecure, but US Senate is pushing for Matrix adoption (without any lobbying from us, I hasten to add). You can read more about it at the Element blog (Element provides the deployments for the US Navy).

P.S. it really is bleakly amusing that we've been constantly pointing out that legislation like EU's ChatControl and the UK's Online Safety Act are catastrophically flawed because the surveillance backdoors they propose will be exploited and abused by attackers. And here we are, with the lawful intercept backdoors in the US public phone system being compromised by attackers, causing the FBI to recommend non-backdoored E2EE instead. We live in a very strange timeline.

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🔗Matrix Live - Social Login with MAS

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

🔗Welcoming Ercom as a Silver Member

Josh Simmons (m.org) says

We'd like to welcome Ercom as the newest Silver Member of the Matrix.org Foundation and are excited to announce a couple other new members before the end of the year 🚀

The Matrix.org Foundation stewards the Matrix protocol specification, facilitates open governance, and convenes the ecosystem. While Matrix continues growing in adoption, the Foundation's funding is not keeping pace. If your organization builds on Matrix and is invested in its future, the time to become a funding member is now.

🔗Matrix.org protocol is not MATRIX

Josh Simmons (m.org) announces

From the department of no-the-other-Matrix: This week saw news of Europol shutting down an encrypted messaging service called MATRIX. All indications are that this has nothing to do with the Matrix protocol, and we are grateful to the agencies and publications that have made an effort to disambiguate. We are, of course, monitoring the situation as more information becomes available.

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🔗Matrix Live

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Thib (m.org) says

Don't forget that Matrix will be in full force @ FOSDEM:

• The CfP for the Matrix Devroom closes on Sunday, December 1
• We already have quite a few volunteers to help us with the booth, but we're always looking for more hands! People who sign up before December 15 are entitled to a limited edition t-shirt :)
• Two organizations have already shown their commitment to the community by offering to sponsor the Fringe Event right before FOSDEM. Pizzas and drinks will be covered, but if other organizations want to sponsor too we can work on more opportunities together!

Continue reading…