enough

Thanks all for the great discussion here. We compiled what we can answer into this new FAQ:

https://confluence-public.open-xchange.com/display/CoiW/FAQ

>90% of mails are delivered really in a couple of seconds, but yeah, turnaround could be quicker. That's why in the longer run we hope to skip the store-and-forward mechanism and instead deliver mails directly by IMAP server to IMAP server.

That's one client we are working on. That client uses delta.chat core to which we are also contributing.

We are working on server specs, the idea is that certain functionality like WebPush, WebRTC calls, channels require the servers to support COI.

The specs will soon be available on GitHub soon. If the server supports JMAP, there are no principle obstacles to also support COI over JMAP. But as said, currently the market share of JMAP is neglible.

You can also run your own mail servers, even non-technical people could do that with for example https://thehelm.com/. Haven't tried it out myself, though.

Very true, but have you tried just reaching out to someone via email on Matrix in practice? I tried with Riot and am not able to do that. Maybe just a bug, but if you want the real Matrix experience, you need a Matrix account. Don't get me wrong, I do love Matrix, but I also love XMPP - both not spectacular successes so far. AFAIK, the French Matrix version is even locked down and does not federate across the network.