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0 pointsSamWhited6y ago0 comments

Matrix will likely never take off, sadly. I was hoping for an alternative for a while too, but not having a proper standards body to advocate for and push the standard probably means it's not displacing XMPP any time soon. Also the protocol just isn't great for chat; if you need a giant distributed graph database, great, but for chat it's just very heavy.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

neiljohnson6y ago· 3 in thread

The evolution of the Matrix protocol is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation/).

XSF contributed the XMPP spec to the IETF after ~10 years, Matrix is a younger protocol (2014) and perhaps it will do something similar in the future.

Given the adoption rates of Matrix, I think it is fair to conclude it is a good fit for chat. Though it is fair to call out that it works quite differently under the hood from many other chat protocols. The decentralised architecture adds a resilience not possible in a purely federated system.

Zash6y ago

A correction:

The Jabber project started in 1999 and https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3921 was published in 2004.

https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/xmppwg/2002-May/000000.htm... suggests that the IETF process was already started in 2002.

neiljohnson6y ago

Oh interesting, thank you for the correction.

In any case Matrix would not rule out working with the IETF in the future, but for now the Matrix.org Foundation manages the governance of the protocol.

SamWhitedOP6y ago

If they donated the spec to a proper standards body I would be much more comfortable with it.

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