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.
We’ve been quite busy at IETF 117 this last week discussing MLS and MIMI in several contexts, meetings, and sessions. Overall things have moved pretty fast in the last week, but the short summary is we’re working with MIMI to get (Linearized) Matrix used as the new-found “signalling layer”. This layer delegates membership of the room to the crypto layer when the crypto layer (namely MLS) supports being used as such, and is responsible for enforcing all policies. Policies in the context of MIMI are things like join rules, history visibility, and power levels, but with an added twist: we’re looking at supporting Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in combination with power levels in MIMI, which should also bring RBAC to Matrix in the form of a currently-unwritten MSC.
All told, we’ve got several new documents to write and MSCs to draft, but we’ll get there in time. The MIMI working group is expecting solutions in place by about September, so watch this space for more news as we progress. An architecture draft is also in progress on the MIMI side to further explain what all of these new layers mean. In the meantime, if you have questions then please visit the matrix-spec room on Matrix!
We’re also looking for more Matrix 1.9 candidates. Currently we have just custom emoji and anything to do with MIMI on the agenda - if you’d like to add more, let us know in the Office of the Matrix Spec Core Team room on Matrix.
This MSC describes a method for verifying (cross-signing) the devices of a bot user, and how verification of that sort could be done. Obviously it wouldn’t make much sense to verify emoji with a bot. Instead, this MSC suggests that the bot provide a URL to present to the user. If the URL appears trustworthy (those who would control this URL should also be in charge of this bot), then the user can choose to continue the verification.
The user’s Matrix client would then make a request to the URL with details of the verification. If the server responds successfully, some cryptographic magic happens, and your client will consider the bot verified!
This is essentially tying a bot’s verification with control of a domain’s DNS, which I think is a smart way to do things. But you do need to watch out for those pesky UTF-8 control characters when asking the user to verify the URL!
We’ve continued our quest to eliminate stuck notifications. Fixes around read receipts for non-thread relations on thread roots, missing replies and some of the zombie notifications that appear on app reload have landed. Hot off the press, we’ve also identified a promising fix for the unread count mismatch before and after decryption. Check out our meta issue for the plan going forward.
On the Compound front, we’ve had discussions around theming support and aligned on letting a small subset of customisable colours define the theme identity while not entirely disabling fully custom themes
Lastly, we’ve also made some more progress around the logout path in the native OIDC integration. Sadly, things will be somewhat delayed here with folks going on summer vacation and having to pivot to other projects temporarily.
Element Android 1.6.5 has been released, it contains some bugfixes, especially when the device is out of network range. Should be available soon on GooglePlay and F-Droid.
Commune is a communications suite built on top of matrix. Commune aims to bring together chat, discussions, email and other interactive apps into a single matrix client.
We’ve had to stop development on Third Room for the foreseeable due to lack of funding (folks who said they were interested in funding the project unfortunately did not come through in the end, and Element unfortunately doesn’t have the resources to continue funding the development solo). All the code is of course Apache Licensed open source, and we very much hope that the codebase will find a way to live on in future.
The Circles team at FUTO is proud to announce the first alpha pre-release of Matrix.swift, our homegrown Swift client SDK for Matrix apps on Apple platforms including iOS and MacOS.
Although the project is still quite rough around the edges, it already provides most of the basic functionality that a simple Matrix client app would need. It can create, join, and leave rooms, and it can send and receive messages and media attachments, with support for Matrix end-to-end encryption via the Rust Crypto SDK.
A more complete list of features is available in the main project repo.
The first alpha v0.1.0 release is available from the FUTO Gitlab as well as from a Github mirror.
Polls. FFI types were added and we got a first draft PR for timeline support. Special thanks to Kévin Commaille who did all the Ruma work this builds on, including recently making it compatible with both the latest state of the MSC and the older version currently implemented by Element Web
The matrix-registration-bot allows you to manage an invite only matrix server. An admin asks the bot for a invite code and then sends this code to a friend (or enemy) that they want to invite to the server.
it is now a lot easier to run the bot
Create an admin account on your server for the bot
run docker run -it -e "BOT_USERNAME=@matrix-registration-bot:example.org" -e "BOT_PASSWORD=SECURE_PASSWORD" -e "BOT_SERVER=https://synapse.example.org" moanos/matrix-registration-bot:1.3.0
Message the bot help to find out about all it can do
For all the folks using matrix-docker-ansible-deploy:
Adding the following to you vars.yml is enough to fully configure the bot
matrix_bot_matrix_registration_bot_enabled: true
#By default, the playbook will set use the bot with a username like
## this: `@bot.matrix-registration-bot:DOMAIN`.
# To use a different username, uncomment & adjust the variable.
The new online documentation has received a bunch of updates, and now the Interacting with the bot section (starting with the usage overview) is much more fleshed out.
The docs are still in an early state, but this is a step towards making the bot easier to work with! If you have any feedback on this, feel free to file an issue or discuss it with us in #flip-matrix-bot:flip.earth.
This post is about a talk „The exciting journey of a Matrix message“ explaining the Matrix protocol and APIs at FrOSCon. Since the conference is mainly in German, the main content of this post is also in German.
Wenn ihr wissen wollt, warum Matrix funktioniert und ihr nächstes Wochenende in der Nähe von Bonn (bzw. Sankt Augustin) seid, schaut euch den Vortrag „Die aufregende Reise einer Matrix-Nachricht“ auf der FrOSCon an!
Im Vortrag verfolgen wir den Weg einer Matrix-Nachricht vom eigenen Eingabefeld bis zur Timeline des Empfängers: Was passiert da, wer redet mit wem und wie zum Geier funktioniert eigentlich diese Verschlüsselung? Zu jedem Schritt schauen wir uns an, welche APIs benutzt werden. Außerdem werfen wir einen Blick in die Matrix-Spezifikation, in der drinsteht, wie das alles funktioniert.
Der Vortrag wird danach auch als Stream bei media.ccc.de verfügbar sein. Die komplette Beschreibung zum Vortrag gibt es im FrOSCon Programm.
Meet other matrix users, chat about Matrix, the rest, and everything else, discuss your Matrix ideas, sign each other in persona, and maybe spice the evening with a good mate or beer.
Also when the bbq is lit you may wish you brougth your favorite item :)
Every first Wednesday of the month in the c-base at 8pm (‘til the next pandemic).
Join #ping-no-synapse:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.
Rank
Hostname
Median MS
1
test.zemos.net
68
2
zemos.net
123
3
herkinf.de
151
4
777.tf
206
5
matrix.org
337
6
l1qu1d.net
750.5
7
evilcyberhacker.net
1184.5
8
shiftsystems.net
22843
That’s all I know
See you next week, and be sure to stop by #twim:matrix.org with your updates!
The Foundation needs you
The Matrix.org Foundation is a non-profit and only relies on donations to operate. Its core mission is to maintain the Matrix Specification, but it does much more than that.
It maintains the matrix.org homeserver and hosts several bridges for free. It fights for our collective rights to digital privacy and dignity.
