It's a bit odd that they're focusing on Matrix rather than MMS in chatty. MMS is the big issue everyone has with it and there are patches to fix it, matrix clients already exist for Linux.
Other than that this is supper exciting!
Other than that this is supper exciting!
There’s also been a lot of of work going on to enable MMS, it’s just that they want to do it properly, which takes more time.
For now, if MMS were used here, I’d try to get it working via the Matrix implementation in chatty as described in [0] or via [1].
[0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_MMS_with_Matrix [1] https://git.sr.ht/~anteater/vgmms
Also, like I said: you can already use matrix on Linux.
Given that Purism wants to provide a fully open source alternative to the Facebook/Whatsapp walled gardens, I'd say that providing the already existing, open, interoperable chat solution that everybody already has is pretty important.
When Matrix comes to my phone, I gain the ability to message with zero of my normal non-tech friends. When MMS comes to my phone I gain the ability to message with ALL of my normal, non-tech friends -- even those who "don't use" MMS. Why? Because, every phone plane includes MMS.