Notices

After reading https://ring.cx/en/about/technical#OpenDHT and https://tuleap.ring.cx/plugins/tracker/?aid=765 I think I know how it is supposed to work at the moment;

• Offilne messaging works only with text messages (of some size xxx bytes?)
• If the recipient is offline, the message is stored for 5 minutes in DHT (Distributed Hash Table) that the networked hosts share together
• If the recipient does not come online in 5 minutes, the message timeouts and never reaches the recipient
• This happens also if the sender is on-line all the time, (which is a bug IMHO...)

This basically means it is unusable.

Guys, what you want is http://matrix.org. It's not p2p -- rather, it is "federated", which mostly gives the best of both worlds: like email, you can choose a server that you trust (run by someone else, or run your own), and you can already talk that way with anyone connected to your own "homeserver"; and in order to communicate with users on other homeservers, the homeservers communicate between themselves (again, think email) -- so it's not client-to-client (hence not true p2p), but it's not that far from that...

The advantages are:
(a) You are in control of the "network" -- nobody can ever come one day and decide to shut it down (like Skype or Gtalk) or ban unofficial clients (like WhatsApp);
(b) the server is "always on" (thus serving as the "agent" @MartinK mentioned); you can connect to it from one or more clients, and history gets synced between all of your clients (because there's a central server).
(c) communications within your homeserver remain in your homeserver: unless a user from another homeserver "joins" a "room" hosted in your server, communications never go to another homeserver, only to clients connected to your homesrever (and you have full control over which users -- both from other homeservers, as well as on your own homeserver -- you allow to join your rooms).

The network supports chat, voice and video (the latter two using WebRTC).

E2E encryption is in the works (may already be done, I'm not sure of the current status), though it has some costs (which are inherent), such as not being able to view history more than once (so if you don't store your history client-side, it's gone; and this may also affect multi-client behavior) --- and given (c) above, it may not be that important in many situations.

There's an "official" homeserver instance running at matrix.org, they are saying they intend to adopt the github model: free for open rooms, but charge money for private rooms. However, currently private rooms are still free, and it's a good way to get a feel for the network before setting up your own homeserver.

Everything about the network is open: specs, server source code, client source code. There are "official" reference implementations of a homeserver, as well as clients for iOS, Android and Web (all open source), and also a bunch of 3rd party implementations (both server and clients).

I don't know of any clients that currently run on the N900 (not sure about other t.m.o devices), but there's a python SDK (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-python-sdk) which could serve as the basis for one...

Just to be clear, I have nothing to do with matrix.org; but as someone who has been feeling the pain that a lot of you are expressing in this thread, when I finally came across matrix.org a few months ago I felt that this is the best attempt I'd seen yet at really creating an open communications network that would ease a lot of that pain...

@dovf:
and whats the advantage compared to XMPP and its wide distribution?

@gaelic:
Such general statements are mostly wrong. What you mean is: "There is ONE scenario which makes this service unusable FOR ME".

This way you can mark any technology as "unusable".

No, if messages go to the bin because someone is not permanently online (device shutdown, vacation abroad, dead zone, grab a beer from the cellar, you name it) it is unusable as of the status of today.

Such general statements are mostly wrong.

The official answer: https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.h...atrix-and-xmpp

Personally, I'm not convinced that there really is that big a difference. I have no experience with XMPP MUC (or whatever it's called -- using XMPP in a group- or room-oriented fashion). But that may be an indication of part of the difference -- I've never encountered a means of using XMPP for group- or room-oriented communications that is as easy as matrix is...

And a key sentence from that response: "The whole subject of XMPP vs Matrix seems to bring out the worst in people. Rather than fighting over which open interoperable communication standard works the best, we should just collaborate and bridge everything together. The more federation and interoperability the better."

Matrix is very open to bridging. Ultimately, I don't care what network anyone else uses, as long as I can communicate with them while I'm using a client and network that works best for me. So XMPP vs. Matrix really is kind of a non-issue...

All popular chat solutions today are unusable.
They all use a central server instance which can be hacked or controlled by individuals who wants to read my private conversations.
Only p2p messengers are usable - as of the status of today.

Got that?

Yeah, but that behaviour is a BUG --> it will be corrected.

Do you know XMPP transports?
The problem with such extensions is that someone has to maintain them. Its useless to have a "WhatsApp" transport which do not work because of protocol changes.