Sunshine
Sustainable decentralised comms at Element
Sustainable decentralised comms at Element

At FOSDEM 2026, Neil Johnson explained why sustainability is essential for open source software - and why it matters even more for decentralised networks like Matrix.

Element Blog
Feb 28 at 3:55amWeb
Show threadu_tamtamFeb 28
Matrix is the most centralised “decentralised” network I know of. You have practically only one server implementation, you have almost one client implementation, by the same people, who also happen to be the ones engaged with standardising the protocol, which quite amazingly never really is up to date with the client/server. The same group also maintains a closed source rust version competing with the open source one, and administers the enormous central node at matrix.org whose federation is so often broken. For a decade plus of efforts, I’m very not impressed and it seems clearer and clearer that people are getting tired of forever waiting for Matrix to be good at anything.
Show threadJenningsFeb 28

@u_tamtam “most centralized decentralized network” that award goes to Bluesky.

I myself use Matrix via FluffyChat on mobile, iamb on desktop, the Fedora project’s server, and chat with a bunch of self-hosted servers. Obviously Element’s products have the highest profile, they are a company and they pay for advertising. But don’t discount the community-developed clients, servers, and instances. They are all fantastic. If anything, this showcases the strength of open protocols and open source: Element can go ahead and make their for-profit, closed-source server, but that doesn’t impede the community’s independence one bit. Yes, matrix.org is quite centralized but the reality is I can have encrypted conversations with matrix.org users without a matrix.org account and that is a story of success.

Show threadMiraculixMCMLXVMar 10
@jennydaman @u_tamtam
Nice. I won't care for it any longer, as it simply is a waste of time and effort. Unusable for somebody not into geeking around. Complicating as hell and a lot of smooth talking around something nice looking and awefully realized.
No, thank you!