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Comment by richardwhiuk | Hacker News Reader

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richardwhiuk

Some issues:

- Why we would we fund Matrix when XMPP and IRC already exists?

- Software developers earn way more than most public sector workers - is this justifiable?

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> Why we would we fund Matrix when XMPP and IRC already exists?

Because empirically Matrix is what governments appear to be using - e.g. https://tchap.beta.gouv.fr/ for France; https://messenger.bwi.de/bundesmessenger for Germany; Delta for Ukraine; equivalent for UK & US, etc.

Matrix also has a completely different featureset to XMPP or IRC: E2EE by default; conversation history as a first class citizen; HTTPS+JSON APIs by default; E2EE Group VoIP (almost) integrated; etc.

> Software developers earn way more than most public sector workers - is this justifiable?

This feels like a false dichotomy. The implication is that public sector software developers are paid less than average private sector software developers. This may well be the case in some places - but the answer there is SURELY to pay public sector software developers the average going rate, rather than conclude that funding private sector FOSS maintenance is not justifiable(!)

I don't think this is a competition, but to clarify: XMPP has long been used in the public sector (via suppliers such as Isode) since before Matrix was conceived, and continues to be still. I've spoken with multiple organizations for whom the Matrix data model was not a good fit. As you say, they are quite different and each has strengths and weaknesses.

Yup - XMPP clearly has a lot of public sector traction too (e.g. in NATO's Federated Mission Networking), and each protocol has its merits. I was just trying to explain that the current "how can Governments better fund Matrix" is borne out of a glut of Governmental Matrix deployments as a WhatsApp/Teams replacement.

No, it's born out of Element not funding Matrix, and Matrix being desparate for funding.

The OP is calling out the need for any large org that depends on a FOSS project to contribute to its maintenance.

Currently we don’t have good mechanisms to make this happen.

The post uses Matrix as an example but it applies equally to any project deemed as critical infrastructure which would of course include XMPP, IRC and plenty of others.

To solve this, FOSS projects must work together to advocate for practical funding mechanisms. This is not a zero sum game.

> Why we would we fund Matrix when XMPP and IRC already exists?

A common sentiment I’ve come across, here and other corners of the internet, is dismay that more organizations have been adopting closed communication platforms such as Discord and Slack. These platforms (probably Discord more so) make it easier for online communities to be set up and offer relatively polished user experience compared to Matrix, IRC, or XMPP.

There was a post shared on HN a few weeks ago by a technical user and their onboarding experience with Matrix https://blog.koehntopp.info/2024/02/13/the-matrix-trashfire.... As someone who uses Matrix, I’m hoping they bridge the UX gap sooner than later.

XMPP and IRC are even further away from being viable alternatives.

Yup. No question that UX is critical for Matrix, and many clients are racing to fix that right now.

If we funded XMPP, we could fix the UX on XMPP, rather than reinventing the wheel with Matrix

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