Weren’t the trackers opt-in? This doesn’t seem like a bad thing if you don’t mind giving up those user metrics for them to build something better. It is the opt-out stuff with no transparency over the kind of data collected to be worried about.

They are both using the exact same double ratchet Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption down to the same problems of other clients keys for haven’t used in a while due to ‘inactivity’.

The only difference is that XMPP is an extensible protocol where you very much can drop encryption all together if that doesn’t suit your use case for the protocol (such as not chat). However, all modern servers folks actually use for chat comminacations follow with the Conversations compliance suite & OMEMO support is expected in clients—meaning everyone using XMPP for standard coms in 2024 have a good encryption story.

Matrix’s extensibilty is limited due to the choice of JSON over XML relying on adhoc, stringly-typed message names. Due adopting an eventual consistency model, Matrix server can’t be run on a potato in your bedroom & most folks are relying on public servers rather than the decentralized, federated self-hosted tendency of the XMPP network in practice not just theory. Most users are on Matrix.org or Matrix.org-provided servers syncing all metadata back to a single entity started with funds from Israeli intelligence. If you ask me which one has a better story for freedom, it’s going to be the one that is lightweight enough & designed to be individually-hosted over the defacto centralized option with resource-intensive clients.

History / sync is known as message archive management (MAM) & every normal modern client & server supports it. OMEMO uses same double-ratchet encryption & multiple clients as Matrix (with the same old client key dropping issues sadly). By default it does not support groups you are correct, however, FOSS Jitsi (& Zoom for that matter) is powered by XMPP under the hood & can be stood up by yourself.

Personally three of my circles have opted for separate Mumble servers for voice coms (I run one of them from my living room) as video is only ever rarely needed & the system resources is minimal. Having web cams on is seen as a chore & distraction sometimes. The only time video is helpful in my experience is screen share which is different—but screensharing is the worst tool for trying to do code pairing / debugging a terminal using upterm provides a crisper view experience, lower data/system requirements, & observers can optionally drive the remote session.

You could switch some of the problems with perf in switching away from the Python implementation server as well as Element clients but these support the most up-to-date features & the majority of users are now relying on these features that often don’t degrade graacefully.

The bigger issue is eventual consistency. Eventual consistency will not scale for small self-hosting. Every message & every attachment for every user in every chatroom they have joined must be duplicated to your server. This is why joining rooms sometmies takes 10 minutes. Even if you make this async from the client side instead of the current long wait, your server & storage are still taking the hit. A lot of small collectives had to drop their servers for performance & cost (read about yet another one today on the Techlore thread at c/privacy where now only Discord is used for realtime coms). This model is required to copycat the ability to search the entire history like the big, proprietary chat apps such as Slack/Telegram/Discord, but they are centralized so it is easier to manage—but its overuse for all announcement & trying to replace forums turns it into a black hole for information. Your small community probably does not need persistent chat like this—persistent info is lighter & easier to crawl as feeds & forums. With medium-sized servers shutting down, only the biggest & smallest hosts are still kicking with most metadata is largely centralized around Matrix.org who also hosts some of the other larger instances.

If you agree that chat can be chatter as well as ephemeral there is lightweight centralized chat in IRCv3 with TLS has most of the features you need with a longer legacy & massive choice for clients & XMPP for lightweight decentralized chat with a long legacy, client options too, & can be self-hosted in a bedroom on a toaster in comparison which increases the chances of self-hosters & decentralization. These were built in a time when we didn’t have such wasteful taste in tech since they needed to be efficient & only sip power/data in comparison both for clients & servers & storage. The bigger question IMO is what are fundamentally wrong with these two mature options that we need a new option built on unextensible JSON & Israeli Intelligence money?

I just had a nice cup of Thai white tea, which induced the opposite of rage 🍵

2.8k seems about the sweet spot on a laptop to be from your face & see no pixels or even have to think about font hinting & the like. The bigger wins are OLEDs for blacks & picking up something with 100% DCI-P3.

This is why self-hosting matters. Why distributed version control is more resilient. I haven’t yet used it but this is the sort of use gave for Radicle where folks seed the repo like a torrent & there is no meaningful centralized server that you could even go after.

They actually do care tho about the tracking—if they weren’t privacy wouldn’t be included in marketing like it is now. They are just more willing to accept it as a fact of life rather than dealing with it (or don’t know that they can do something or how to start).

We should make this easier for folks ’cause every email I send from a non-data-collection host usually ends up on a Google or Microsoft server, etc. Every silly Discord chatroom you join, or Facebook page you like has the same ramifications.

If they whine (pun not intended) make the moderators add a Linux category & proudly show off that you run games fast on a free OS.

I would agree but I spent very little time in my domicile & haven’t set foot within US borders in years. Seeing that I don’t pay (local) taxes or otherwise participate in the local community or economy, I would argue it would be unethical if I did vote in a place that doesn’t represent me & I don’t understand too well—like voting straight ticket without looking into any candidates. Last time I did a mail-in, I only checked State-level boxes since those you can easily research online & are more broad-reaching than the local level where only locals should be casting ballets for their community.

If I could vote on issues that actually affect me, I absolutely would—like FBAR reforms where you aren’t seen as a criminal for having more that $10k in a foreign bank where you actually have your address, tax reforms that took TurboTax out of the equation as the only ‘affordable’ option that actually lets you file with a non-US address instead of a no-service error, or Medicare/Medicaid reform that allowed vouchers or reimbursement for using services abroad rather than it being a money sinkhole you pay into your whole life, even if you don’t live there, but can’t redeem any care unless on US soil. These are never ballot measures & instead requires, ugh lobbying or a representative willing to champion these topics seen niche despite there being more citizens outside the US than some States in population.

Eve, we made Cincinnati-style chilidogs. Homemade chili was great, but store-bought buns weren’t great, and neither were the dogs, but it’s rough to get proper ingredients on a different continent. I may try it again this week but with cornbread (I have extra maize flour around, but no spaghetti).

If true, that would be awesome if a new SteamOS became a Linux on-ramp (Debian base didn’t quite pan out).