[HN Gopher] Gitter is joining Matrix
___________________________________________________________________
Gitter is joining Matrix
Author : BubuIIC
Score : 522 points
Date : 2020-09-30 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (matrix.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (matrix.org)
| sandGorgon wrote:
| Congratulations to Element ! Gitter is a fantastic platform . Are
| we possibly going to see Gitter become a reference open source
| implementation of Matrix ?
| mleonhard wrote:
| If you granted Gitter access to Gitlab, you granted it full read
| access to everything in your Gitlab account. This is because
| Gitlab does not yet support restricted access grants [1].
|
| Soon https://element.io will have that full access. Now is a good
| time to check your Gitlab access grants:
| https://gitlab.com/profile/applications
|
| [1] "Support restricting OAuth tokens to specific projects and
| groups " https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/22115
| Arathorn wrote:
| Absolutely - at Element we categorically have zero desire to
| have access to anything in your GL accounts. On the other hand,
| for the same reason, we're not going to exploit that :/
| adsjhdashkj wrote:
| Can anyone comment on the state of UX with Element these days?
| I'm changing to Linux/Windows from Mac, so i'm dumping iMessage -
| but i'm not convinced Signal has a good enough UX to keep me and
| my family happy.
|
| Sidenote, i love how i can pay Element and support
| Matrix/Element.
| robjan wrote:
| Element is probably harder to use than Signal for less
| technically inclined users.
|
| There are some other matrix clients, like Pattle, which hide
| much of the complexity and give a more familiar UX to other
| messaging apps.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Personally speaking, I'm extremely happy with Element.
|
| With good UX, easy encryption, the option to self host if you
| feel so inclined, I haven't found anything to complain about.
| DenseComet wrote:
| If you want to support the project and get something from it, a
| good way is to get yourself a hosted server from Element. The
| cheapest plan is $10 per month for 5 users, and includes things
| like a custom domain.
|
| https://element.io/plans-and-pricing/pro
| j-james wrote:
| In my opinion, Signal's UX is better than Element. Element's
| distinction of rooms / communities is not great, and hindered
| by the user interface. Although, after checking out Element
| again, all the other parts of the UI that I thought were
| unintuitive were changed up, so it's certainly improving.
|
| Particularly for the situation you described - small, family
| chats - I'd recommend Signal over Element / Matrix.
| Avamander wrote:
| Still not good, confusing and not very fast. Like Keybase four
| years ago. They have some catching up to do and I hope they do
| it before Keybase is shut down.
|
| If a Riot contributor is reading this comment, go try Keybase
| out while you still can, there are things it does well.
| djsumdog wrote:
| Interesting. Is there already a Gitter->Matrix bridge, and that
| would essentially be going away once Gitter fully supports
| Matrix? It seems like they're not changing Gitter to talk Matrix,
| but actually switching the backend to be Matrix? Is that right?
| decentralisedog wrote:
| The short term plan is to replace the existing (rather rubbish)
| Gitter<->Matrix bridge with a fully featured bridge that
| seamlessly bridges between Gitter and Matrix.
|
| The long term plan folding gitter.im features into Element and
| Gitter users will migrate to using Element and Matrix.
| TooCreative wrote:
| I really like to use IRC on the terminal via Irssi.
|
| Can Irssi be used to access this matrix thing?
|
| If not, is there some nice matrix command line client in the
| Debian repos?
|
| Or maybe someone could just make an IRC server which is a bridge
| to matrix?
| mewmewblobcat wrote:
| There's matrix-ircd which exposes Matrix servers as an IRC
| server. So, I'm pretty sure what you want already exists.
| andolanra wrote:
| Matrix is based on an open documented protocol, which means it
| welcomes multiple implementations. There are several terminal-
| based clients, which you can see on their current client list,
| and I wouldn't be surprised if more appear over time:
| https://matrix.org/clients/
|
| There are also Matrix-IRC bridges that already exist:
| https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc
| Valodim wrote:
| Obligatory https://xkcd.com/1782/
| 3np wrote:
| > Can Irssi be used to access this matrix thing?
|
| Yup. I haven't tried it myself and I think there are different
| ways to set that up but this could be a start (I think this is
| more targeted towards bridging matrix and IRC, which may or may
| not be what you want): https://matrix.org/bridges/#irc
|
| > If not, is there some nice matrix command line client in the
| Debian repos?
|
| Not sure what's in the mainline debian repos but there are some
| decent CLI clients, yes: https://matrix.org/clients/
|
| If you're OK with weechat you can use that already :)
|
| IMO matrix is already mature to be an IRC killer (caveat
| federated/decentralized identities, if that's something you
| require but arguably IRC doesn't have that either).
| kzrdude wrote:
| Can you explain the caveat? Federated identity seems to be
| what matrix already offers. Even if the main instance at
| matrix.org dominates.
| lukeramsden wrote:
| You could use an IRC Bridge https://github.com/matrix-
| org/matrix-appservice-irc As for direct access from the command
| line, I don't know.
| dangsBoss wrote:
| use weechat, you fucking looser. irssi is outdated!
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| Be aware that the bridges between matrix.org and IRC are often
| unreliable.
| Arathorn wrote:
| this has historically due to the matrix.org (where those
| bridges live) being thoroughly overloaded. these days (since
| ~May) we have it under control and it should be pretty
| robust.
| louib wrote:
| There's a weechat plugin for matrix that's being actively
| developed here https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix-rs.
| this_user wrote:
| > If not, is there some nice matrix command line client in the
| Debian repos?
|
| There is the gomuks client (https://github.com/tulir/gomuks)
| for the command line. I'm not sure about the Debian package,
| though.
| Arathorn wrote:
| I'm not sure anyone has written an irssi plugin specifically,
| but there's an _excellent_ weechat plugin
| (https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix). As others have
| said, there's also matrix-ircd which exposes all of Matrix as
| an IRC server you can connect to from whatever IRC client
| floats your boat, but you end up speaking the subset of Matrix
| which can be represented as IRC, which is a bit of a shame.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| This is awesome. I found Gitter super handy because of it's close
| tie to repos, but being able to reach it from Element would be
| really nice.
| mike-cardwell wrote:
| You already could, before this announcement. For example, want
| to join https://gitter.im/hashicorp-consul/Lobby ? Then join
| #gitter_hashicorp-consul=2FLobby:matrix.org from Element.
| Arathorn wrote:
| yup, but the experience is pretty dire, particularly on the
| Gitter side of the bridge. The intention instead is to be
| able to join #hashicorp-consul_lobby:gitter.im in Matrix, and
| have all the Gitter users natively there in Matrix... but
| also all the Matrix users there natively in Gitter :)
| jondubois wrote:
| I thought Gitter had already been acquired by GitLab?
| boleary-gl wrote:
| GitLab team member here.
|
| That is correct - in 2017
| https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2017/03/15/gitter-acquisition/.
| But as announced today, Gitter will be going to Matrix going
| forward.
| [deleted]
| siraben wrote:
| This is great news. I've used Gitter for communication in some
| open source projects, and have always found certain things
| painful. My favorite points from the article are;
|
| - Improving iOS and Android apps. At least in the iOS case, the
| experience is abysmal (the web interface is similarly so)
|
| - Replacement of the matrix-appservice-gitter bridge. I've used
| the Matrix <-> Gitter bridge for some time now but there's much
| left to be desired, such as proper edit and deletion of messages
| to and from the services.
|
| Overall, it's great to see less future fragmentation in the chat
| systems developers use, reminds me of the XKCD comic[0] and a
| modification showing the matrix.org bridges[1]
|
| [0] https://xkcd.com/1810/
|
| [1] https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/0*vILzcbWOi7e4RtK0
| ncmncm wrote:
| Funny that with all the circles, Discord isn't there.
|
| Or Gitter.
| reitanuki wrote:
| This is interesting and unexpected news.
| acd wrote:
| I am happy and thankful to the developers that open source chat
| is joining forces. It's the right thing todo!
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| I've found trying to get help from any project that uses Gitter
| to be a huge pain. It seems that people hardly ever check
| messages on there. I hope this helps the situation from a UX
| perspective. Maybe can provide better notification management
| options?
| jeffail wrote:
| I'm massively rooting for this. I really wanted to use Gitter as
| the official chat for my projects, but the experience was just so
| painful that I ended up fragmenting the community across Discord
| and a gated Slack. I would love to have a forever home where I
| can feel comfortable getting everyone on board.
| varbhat wrote:
| So, how long will it take (approximate) to complete the mentioned
| process ?
|
| Also, I think that matrix ecosystem will grow from this move.
| Arathorn wrote:
| We hope to get Gitter natively speaking Matrix in the coming
| months. It'll probably be a year or so before Element has
| feature parity with Gitter though :)
| xbar wrote:
| Good luck. We're all counting on you.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Sounds like an optimistic plan.
|
| (Note: I've never used gitter. Registering on another funky
| and closed chat platform was never a hurdle I managed to jump
| over. Going for matrix sounds awesome, I have an identity
| there.)
| kuon wrote:
| I really like matrix, but there is one important feature missing
| : threads.
|
| Once threads will be implemented, I am sure matrix will grow a
| lot more, especially inside enterprises.
|
| I hope the merge will help with that. Best of luck both teams.
| jerodsanto wrote:
| Additional topics discussed in our just-released conversation[1]
| with GitLab and Element leads:
|
| 1. What happened to "ChatOps" and why is GitLab divesting in this
| space?
|
| 2. Who contacted whom? What are some details of the acquisition
| process and negotiations?
|
| 3. What does this mean at a practical sense for existing Gitter
| users?
|
| 4. What's going to happen in the next 6, 12, and 18 months?
|
| [1]: https://changelog.com/podcast/414
| sytse wrote:
| 1. ChatOps is still a feature of GitLab
| https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/chatops/ and supports multiple
| chat platforms. GitLab doesn't need to own the chat to make
| chatops work.
|
| 2. GitLab contacted Matrix.
|
| I think 3. and 4. have answers in
| https://matrix.org/blog/2020/09/30/welcoming-gitter-to-matri...
| sm4rk0 wrote:
| I believe that grandparent wanted us to listen to the
| interview (:
| tha0x5 wrote:
| "ChatOps" almost invariably means Slack. That's why GitLab is
| divesting in that space.
|
| Look at what happened HipChat, Stride, etc.
| dangsBoss wrote:
| From the optimalized side we are always sorry that anything
| joiins the Matrix enclave. Matrix is so over-utilized and under-
| optimalized, I hope they will do something about it, since it's
| embarrassing that Mozilla co uses it as their war-room, and,
| wait, that it sucks so much. Mozilla is semi-corrupt so perhaps
| that's the CO'd answer. Matrix sucks, even Discord is danged
| better.
| theon144 wrote:
| Way cool! Anecdotally, of course, but a sizeable number of Matrix
| rooms I was in were actually bridged Gitter rooms. Looking
| forward to tighter integration!
| Avamander wrote:
| I really hope that Gitter chat histories will be still kept
| search-engine indexed the way they are right now.
| Arathorn wrote:
| they will.
| pknopf wrote:
| GitLab hasn't been giving it any attention. All they need is a
| checkmark in their portfolio.
| akerro wrote:
| Yes, shame GitLab didn't integrate Gitter natively into public
| projects same way issues and roadmaps are integrated.
| YorickPeterse wrote:
| I recall we considered this at various stages a few years
| back. I think this was around the same time we introduced our
| chatops integration.
|
| I don't know the exact details and can't speak for others,
| but I suspect GitLab realised that chat(ops) tools are hard
| to sell and our time is better spent elsewhere. It's a shame
| though, having Gitter/chat directly integrated in a project
| (properly, not using e.g. an iframe) would've been pretty
| cool.
| Arathorn wrote:
| Ironically Gitter moving to Matrix probably makes this more
| likely - as integrating Matrix into GitLab would be much
| more sensible than integrating a single opinionated client
| like Gitter, given if GitLab properly spoke Matrix for
| chatops, it'd then be available to anyone in Matrix
| (Gitter, Element, or any platform bridged into Matrix -
| Slack, Discord, etc)
| akerro wrote:
| element already has some gitlab integrations
| [deleted]
| Arathorn wrote:
| From the Matrix side, we're ridiculously happy to have the
| opportunity to defragment developer chat a bit, and get folks on
| Gitter natively talking to folks elsewhere on Matrix (including
| bridged to IRC, Slack, Discord or whatever). The fragmentation of
| FOSS development chat into proprietary silos a few years back was
| incredibly depressing, and this is our attempt to put right what
| once went wrong :) Happy to try to answer any questions from the
| Matrix side!
|
| Also, https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/30/element-acquires-gitter-
| to... is a pretty massive deep-dive into the migration, and The
| Changelog did a big podcast covering off all the details on both
| the GitLab/Gitter and Element/Matrix side:
| https://changelog.com/podcast/414
| samschooler wrote:
| Don't know if you have access to the Gitter side but as of now,
| the blog post is 404ing https://blog.gitter.im/gitter-element-
| acquisition/
| wut42 wrote:
| The correct URL is https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-
| element-acquisition...
| Arathorn wrote:
| oops, Ghost fail; fixed now :)
| mathnmusic wrote:
| One of the best features of Gitter is that it can be embedded
| on webpages which reduces a lot of friction for public
| communities. Please keep that feature and perhaps, even
| replicate it in Matrix. This can be a unique value prop for
| both over the proprietary ones. Plus, it enriches the Web as
| opposed to moving all things into app silos.
| Arathorn wrote:
| For sure. Matrix is sprouting this too (there was a GSoC
| project this summer for it, and the Hydrogen Matrix client is
| also properly embeddable, unlike Element) - but with Gitter
| becoming a Matrix client we could do so from that side too!
| sytse wrote:
| From the GitLab side we're very happy with the new home for
| Gitter. Chat is very useful but using multiple incompatible
| technologies has lead to fragmentation and silos. For example
| external developers being on Gitter when the organization
| behind the project is on Slack. Matrix is a great way to solve
| that and we hope Gitter will contribute to the success of it.
| pabs3 wrote:
| The Matrix to IRC bridge (for at least freenode and OFTC) has a
| number of suboptimal behaviours on the IRC side, it would be
| great if you could improve the experience for folks not using
| Matrix.
| Arathorn wrote:
| We're aware of folks objecting that messages longer than 3
| lines get autopastebinned, and that replies are a bit jarring
| on IRC. Or do you have something else in mind?
|
| Impedance mismatches are inevitable, but we obviously don't
| want Matrix to crap over native experiences on IRC or
| elsewhere. So: give us specifics and we'll fix as best we
| can.
| lhoff wrote:
| It is not obvious from the title but Element is actually
| acquiring Gitter. Quote from the article:
|
| > In practice, the way this is happening is that Element (the
| company founded by the Matrix core team to fund Matrix
| development) is acquiring Gitter from GitLab, with a combined
| Gitter and Element dev team focusing on giving Gitter a new life
| in Matrix!
|
| There is also another blogpost from the elements side
| https://element.io/blog/gitter-is-joining-element/
| Arathorn wrote:
| Well, the main news is that Gitter is going to natively join
| Matrix. We've been talking about doing this for a few years,
| but it never got to the top of the todo list on either side -
| plus frankly we're breaking new ground by making a large
| existing network natively speak Matrix (complete with
| incorporating room archives, etc).
|
| Others (e.g. Rocket.Chat) have had a go at natively speaking
| Matrix but it's hard to be the first to do so unless both sides
| of the bridge are prioritising it and focusing on making it a
| success - and an obvious way of getting aligned is if you are
| on the same team. So when the opportunity came up for Gitter to
| move from GitLab to Element, it was a no-brainer way to ensure
| a successful native bridge for Gitter into Matrix. But we'd
| probably have got around to it anyway... it'd just have had a
| lower chance of success.
|
| As another datapoint: Gitter was already looking
| (independently) at using Element to replace their native mobile
| apps, which otherwise they were having to deprecate
| (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitter/webapp/-/issues/2281).
|
| Edit: another relevant link:
| https://blog.gitter.im/2020/09/30/gitter-element-acquisition...
| justinclift wrote:
| > Well, the main news is that Gitter is going to natively
| join Matrix.
|
| Depends on your point of view. I'd not heard of Matrix
| before, and don't really care.
|
| To me, it's more interesting that GitLab is selling off
| Gitter.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Meanwhile, I had not heard of Gitter until just this
| moment. But I have been migrating my presence to Matrix,
| and the Matrix clients are pretty good, approaching par
| with Signal, which has been pretty good.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I'm really excited about this too, but I'm afraid it does
| matter.
|
| Gitter of it's own accord federating with matrix would be a
| watershed moment of a competitor laying down it's arms for
| the greater good, a detente in capitalism, and a really good
| sign for the future of all things Federated.
|
| Element acquiring Gitter is normal M&A, normal business. It's
| still good for Matrix and good for Gitter users, and we're
| still cheering you on, but it's not quite that same watershed
| moment.
| the_duke wrote:
| I love this move, since I'm trying to move to Matrix as my
| primary chat where possible. Even more so since some of the
| mentioned features are sorely needed in Element, like
| threads.
|
| But Gitlab is a for-profit company.
|
| I don't see this as Gitter laying down arms, but rather as
| Gitlab not being able to monetize Gitter enough to justify
| keeping it in the company. They probably sold it for a very
| reasonable amount.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Right. The point is, if a _competitor_ who was a for-
| profit company was willing to federate with Element, as a
| first-party contributor not just reluctantly "I guess
| you can use our integration API's for that and we won't
| stop you... yet" -- that would be watershed moment in
| hopes of federation/integration instead of silos being a
| thing.
|
| That is indeed not what happened. It's just an
| acquisition. It does _not_ actually give us hope that
| there 's more momentum towards competitors being willing
| to play together in federation, that's not what happened.
|
| Not sure why the one who made that point is getting
| downvoted, I think it's an interesting observation. That
| the press release arguably kind of intentionally tries to
| hand wave over a bit.
| Arathorn wrote:
| The Matrix.org blog post isn't really me trying to wave a
| hand over it - it's just that the Element, Gitter and
| GitLab (https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/09/30/gitter-
| moves-to-ele...) and Changelog stories fixate on it being
| an acquisition, and I wanted to dwell on the impact for
| Matrix.
|
| The reality is that bridging a big existing network is a
| significant undertaking and nobody has done it before
| (other than possibly Matrix.org and Freenode, but it's
| not like Freenode is letting us talk TS6; we come in as
| clients). So the acquisition is basically a catalyst to
| break this impasse. We're hoping that Rocket.Chat,
| Mattermost, Teams, Slack, Discord will watch what we do
| and copy it with more confidence to join the network. At
| least that's the dream :)
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Slack and Discord need their walled gardens to justify
| their current state, but low-growth things like
| Mattermost should federate with little to loose.
|
| My most-realistic dream is for Freenode to be Matrix by
| default with the IRC interface just for clients.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| We are in agreement.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Please, please fix the years-old notification bug where you
| can't turn off email notifications for _every single comment_
| without leaving the channel.
|
| "Only email me when I'm mentioned" actually emails you for
| every message instead.
| Arathorn wrote:
| On Gitter? Element gets this right at least, so once we
| seing Gitter over to being entirely Matrix backed it should
| be ok.
| redonkulus wrote:
| Talk about burying the lead. That wasn't mentioned in the
| matrix blog post at all. Only that Gitter would be using matrix
| natively. Doesn't matter either way but weird to not mention
| it.
| Arathorn wrote:
| The lede is that Gitter is going to natively federate with
| Matrix. The fact Element bought Gitter is there in the matrix
| blog post:
|
| > In practice, the way this is happening is that Element (the
| company founded by the Matrix core team to fund Matrix
| development) is acquiring Gitter from GitLab.
| hntestacc wrote:
| This is a test, sorry please pass by
| randtrain34 wrote:
| > Our plan is instead to merge Gitter's features into Element (or
| next generations of Element) itself and then - if and only if
| Element has achieved parity with Gitter based on the above list -
| we expect to upgrade the deployment on gitter.im to a Gitter-
| customised version of Element. The inevitable side-effect is that
| we'll be adding new features to Element rather than Gitter going
| forwards.
|
| Wonder what existing Gitter users think about this?
| Vinnl wrote:
| Using it mostly out of necessity (a project I'm involved in
| uses it for communication), but I'm mostly enthusiastic about
| no longer having that annoying Matrixbot - there were always a
| number of Matrix users, and the implementation was incredibly
| confusing.
|
| It's a nice bonus that I'll no longer be dependent on Gitter's
| somewhat buggy Web UI.
|
| (That said, I _am_ somewhat sceptical about whether we 'll see
| any reasonable results in a reasonable amount of time - GitLab
| promised Gitter rooms for GitLab projects as well when they
| acquired it, and I'm not even sure if that ever saw the light
| of day.)
| Arathorn wrote:
| > That said, I am somewhat sceptical about whether we'll see
| any reasonable results in a reasonable amount of time
|
| As Element we are if nothing else highly financially
| motivated to get Gitter bridged into Matrix, so we can run it
| via our normal Matrix server backend farm rather than keep an
| entirely parallel deployment running of Gitter
| infrastructure. We also want to stick to our word :)
| Vinnl wrote:
| I'm rooting for you!
| StavrosK wrote:
| I am ecstatic. The Element Android client is quite good and
| getting better, and I'd love to be able to access gitter from
| that.
| remram wrote:
| I don't think Gitter development was very active, before or
| after their acquisition by GitLab. It has been pretty much the
| same since 2016. It being folded into another tool felt
| inevitable to me.
| coolreader18 wrote:
| I'm hyped for this; RustPython uses gitter as its main
| communication platform for developers and contributors, and
| while it's certainly worked quite well for us so far, I was
| slightly worried the slow pace of development and the
| deprecation of mobile apps. It seemed (to me, at least, and I
| don't follow the gitter changelogs or anything - edit: just
| looked at them now, so yeah, what follows is pretty unfounded.
| Anyway,) like gitter was sorta becoming a ghost ship, still
| running along smoothly but not much was happening at the helm
| -- this also might be because I mainly use the Android app,
| which is deprecated, so I see very few updates to gitter if
| any. Anyway, yeah, I think this is a great direction to go for
| gitter, if only so I'll have an updated mobile app :)
| kag0 wrote:
| I'm happy about it.
|
| For me, one shortcoming of gitter is that it has always been
| tertiary in my pool of chat services. The more tertiary
| services are accessible through matrix the better, that way I'm
| less likely to miss notifications.
|
| I don't think there are big downsides, I can't think of
| anything in the core gitter chat that I would miss when
| switching to matrix.
| Arathorn wrote:
| Hopefully they'll be happy that Gitter will sprout all Matrix's
| funky features like E2EE, VoIP, Widgets, Read receipts,
| Reactions, a bajillion clients/bots/bridges, the open standard
| API itself... and as long as Element-branded-as-Gitter looks
| and performs and smells enough like Gitter, and the community &
| rooms are still there, all will be well.
|
| And if they don't like it, they can always go spin up their own
| Gitter instance and maintain it, bridged into Matrix - it's
| FOSS after all :D
| phone8675309 wrote:
| This is the "slippers and sex toy" deflection. If the user's
| don't like the slippers (new features) they can use the sex
| toy to fornicate themselves.
| crakenzak wrote:
| man some people really find anything to complain about huh
| Arathorn wrote:
| and this is a bad thing? O:-)
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Not saying it's good or bad, but nobody can be shocked
| Pikachu when it's never the "year of the Linux desktop"
| with this type of mentality.
| josteink wrote:
| Oooh. How nice.
|
| Just a few days ago I considered setting up a Gitter-bridge for
| my Marrix-instance, but decided that it was both too involved and
| not well-enough integrated to be worth it.
|
| This is really good news!
| FloatArtifact wrote:
| Gitter has a much simpler onboarding experience and users don't
| have to be signed in or members of a room to view chat. I like
| the ideals of Element. In fact I have the services bridged
| between chat rooms. Currently editing chat posts between
| different clients is less than subpar. Gitter build on Element
| will fix that issue.
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(page generated 2020-09-30 23:00 UTC)