Should we run a Matrix server?

May First does not offer Matrix (though it might in the future), so I don't think it's duplication.

I said "some overlap", I think that's accurate and it's worth considering using their chat services in the future instead.

I'm generally in favor of exploring a matrix or other federated chat system with E2EE support via social.coop.

My concerns about us having our own matrix server are mainly around the resources involved. Unless theres been significant changes in the last couple of years it will take a lot more money and, I think, more importantly attention from our volunteer sys admins to keep it running well. We havent always done amazingly keeping our mastodon instance running well and updated. Theres been a number of people whove put in heroic efforts over the years keeping things running.

To answer @jonny appatrently the problem with synapse is largely that it's written in python which isn't at all suited for the task at hand.

The folks at matrix.org have been working on an alternative, Dendrite (i forget the language) for years, but its still missing significant features. Same with the independent server implementation conduit which is written in rust.

Id agree that the point of running our own server instead of using matrix.org would be similar to why we have our mastodon rather than all just use mastodon.social

Finally an alternative is to use XMPP, which is functionally similar. We could do this more easily. Its been mentioned above that one of the two main server options eJabber is in the process of rolling out support for the matrix protocol, which is interesting.

Also as Sam has been suggesting May First run a XMPP server for their members, so we could maybe make some arrangements with them? Provide their members with use of mastodon if ours can use their XMPP?

I regularly use both. Matrix feels more new and vibrant with more people in its public rooms. Also has more bugs and federation issues.

XMPP feels more basic/old but has been pretty rock solid for me. The main android client works well and is likely to get a major update soon(ish). Also has amazingly low battery drain on phones without Google Play Services, unlike matrix/element.

Not sure if theres a decent iOS xmpp app yet? I've heard people grumble a fair bit, but dont really pay attention.

Lots of app options on desktop / laptop

My concerns about us having our own matrix server are mainly around the resources involved.

Agreed. The Synapse server is difficult to scale efficiently.

That being said, both the official Go rewrite (https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite) and the third party Rust one (conduit.rs) have come a long way. They may be easier from a technical operations perspective even if they haven't reached perfect feature parity (yet -- but doesn't seem far off).

Regarding XMPP, there is a current integration going on between a server and clients for Android + iOS in https://snikket.org/

I was on the XMPP Board one year almost 20 years ago now. I’m also in favour of Matrix.

As a protocol and community it is doing a number of different things. The code and protocol are open and able to be used by anyone.

here’s a metaverse project being built on Matrix https://thirdroom.io

Real-time encrypted group chat is a different, complementary thing to Microblogging on ActivityPub.

I’m in favour of running a Matrix instance.

I strongly support the creation of a Matrix server for social.coop. I am currently on a private (unfederated) Matrix server that my spouse (Tim) runs off of a home computer, and the interface is very comfortable and easy to use. The interface is similar to Discord or Slack.

My partner, Tim says:

"Our server runs on Dendrite, which is the official/future higher-performance replacement for Synapse—although the protocol continues to evolve, so Matrix developers are having to update *both* servers, dividing their efforts. It uses Postgres for a database but is otherwise fairly self-contained. I have it installed via a set of Ansible scripts <https://github.com/timmc/commapps/blob/master/roles/matrix/README.md>. Ours is not federated, which is partly for performance reasons and partly for safety reasons. (Our young kid is on it, and there's no way to block DMs from off-server, I think?) Dendrite has improved dramatically in stability and performance recently, so I'm optimistic that it's a good path to take. (Joining a huge room also might no longer bog down or kill the server these days, but I haven't checked. I'm also running this on a 10 year old laptop, to be fair.) We also have our own Element-web instance, which is extremely easy to host—this is important for the signin experience, as the main Element instance defaults to signin to matrix.org. And finally we run a matrix-registration UI, which allows friends to sign up using a registration token. Social.coop would probably create accounts manually instead, though."

Tim also notes that we have run into some glitchiness in the user interface for encrypted messaging, and that we mostly only use encryption for 1:1 chat, not for rooms.

He says he's found it easy to administer (though federation might make this more complicated), and would be happy to answer any questions that others might have.