Discussion: Matrix Integration

[sunjam]

Specific discussions should take place in the subtickets.

This is a discussion thread for matrix.org integration as mentioned in meta thread #687. Also mentioned in chat meta thread #294 #395. Matrix has been announced as the base platform for the upcoming Librem 5 phone.

[Thatoo]

I knew about Matterbridge but I've never tried it. Does it feel like Talk become a matrix client?

[sunjam]

A possibility for better future integration from Nextcloud to Matrix, or any other third party web service, is webhooks. Here is the Matrix webhook service. Nextcloud Flow Webhooks app hasn't received any new development since being announced on version 20. If it receives development in the future it could then be possible to get notifications from Nextcloud that would appear to look native in Matrix...

These are a couple examples that come to mind if you could one day receive webhooks in Matrix from sharing folders, sharing calendars, and starting Talk calls:

"Joe invited you to an upcoming event: Weekly Meeting." "Jacque shared a photo gallery: Hiking Memories 2021" "Jill started a Talk video call: Weekly Meeting"

For the time being one could also use an RSS feed from Nextcloud's Activity app to receive at least notifications in Matrix's RSS bot. Should be possible, depending on which Matrix bot, to program in some filtering so only certain activites are x-posted.

[Mannshoch]

Matterbridge is a good start. But it is not that good integrated. You could only integrate one Channel. For a good integration you need at least a kind of Support for hirarchic Channels. So you could arrange several messanger, it's channels, subchannels in Talk.

[sunjam]

Matterbridge is a good start. But it is not that good integrated. You could only integrate one Channel. For a good integration you need at least a kind of Support for hirarchic Channels. So you could arrange several messanger, it's channels, subchannels in Talk.

Makes sense. It is all very much in process. Be sure to file your bug reports and feature requests on their repo. Hopefully it will continue to develop and improve.

[Thatoo]

Sounds like with Matterbridge, Talk doesn't look like a matrix client after all. Hopefully it will improve indeed or that Talk's dev would find an other solution to integrate Matrix network.

[Mannshoch]

The Current de-facto standard seems to bee on the Left side the possibility to chose Channels and the right side to see the chats. All current Messanger use that layout (even Mail). Talk fit these Optical Standards pretty good. In my opinian Talk need Optical enhancements on on-going text-audio-video chats.

[bzmrgonz]

Thank you for such a informative discussion thread guys, I feel like I jumped into a time machine, went to 2018 and then made small hops forward until I got to March 2022. I stumbled across this thread, while looking at uni-channel support or implementation in matrix. I think more specifically the news of nexcloud and rocket.chat partnership brought me here. Jose Franco gave a great talk at AstriCon concerning the integration of asterisk and matrix to create a true and bona fide self hosted omni-channel solution (asterisk being the bridge to traditional phone lines). Rocket Chat boasts that it is the only messaging platform that offers omni-channel support out of the box. My take away from this wonderful rabbit hole adventure of mine, is that we will essentially need to keep 3 eggs in our baskets (nextcloud / matrix / asterisk). Does anyone have any experience hosting/using this trifecta?? Could also be (nexcloud/rocket.chat/asterisk) if federation is not so important

[Mannshoch]

I for my self only have a cheap php webserver but I would really like it if Nextcloud could grow that way I know some local Charitys that could use it. Cureently I also struggle abit with the case that I have 6 acounts on 6 different Nextclouds. 3 of them I set up because the Charity asked me. It would be also important to have a possibility to merge all Nextcloud accounts into one Talk surface.

[hex-m]

As Rocket.Chat was mentioned here multiple times: the announced that they plan to support the Matrix protocol for federation.

Nextcloud and Rocket.Chat are already well integrated, so if Rocket.Chat becomes fully Matrix-Compliant (at least for the server-to-server part), it would probably solve this issue.

Great to see those important projects working together! <3

[Thatoo]

Indeed : https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/30/welcoming-rocket-chat-to-matrix Let's hope Talk will join Matrix too. As written at the end of this blog post, matrix.org would welcome and seems willing to help Nextcloud Talk to federate with Matrix network.

[motey]

Slightly off topic but also not: A new EU regulation on messenger interoperability appears in the wild https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises

From my naive view the existing matrix API would be an obvious choice for a coming up standard

[bzmrgonz]

Europe is turning out to be quite the HERO, not the HERO we deserve, but the Hero we need. Soon, messaging will be liberated and federated. I tumbled across a very interesting article this past week guys, I actually shared it with Matrix's founder Mathew Hodgson(tho he hasn't replied yet, if anyone is close to him, I think this article speaks to strategy). This is an article which explains what is happening in the multi-polar world of technology. It seems the technology war has moved up the hardware stack, battle ground is now thin platform. Take a read, hopefully it will be an eye opener for most of you, as it was for me. https://stratechery.com/2022/thin-platforms/

[Fuseteam]

Indeed : https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/30/welcoming-rocket-chat-to-matrix Let's hope Talk will join Matrix too. As written at the end of this blog post, matrix.org would welcome and seems willing to help Nextcloud Talk to federate with Matrix network.

Seems joining the matrix networks comes down to embedding a dendrite server into it and having a bridge build-in.

It also seems we haven't seen a new release of the rocket chat integration since they announced joining matrix either :(

[MurzNN]

It also seems we haven't seen a new release of the rocket chat integration since they announced joining matrix either :(

Here is the announce of the release with Matrix Federation and here is manual how to configure it.

[sebastiaanveld]

I would like to add that I too think adding the Matrix protocol(s) to Talk/NC is the way forward. Without such integration Talk is "just" a silo (which may be fine or be a requirement for some organizations) solution. I envision we connect these silos leveraging the Matrix protocol which would be a good alternative for using email (IMO: which is getting old, moves itself into a Christmas tree of security solutions which gets hard to maintain etc). This is in line with the Matrix vision and (as mentioned in this thread) where EU regulations are hinting to. From what I see companies choose cloud email and office solutions cause they "work together" and are "Compatible" (for what that is worth), so If we want to be an alternative for like education, governments etc there needs to be an standardized option to glue these systems together. Once "Talk" (or any Matrix enabled client for that matter) is the better solution, there's less need to use email.

[Fuseteam]

i'm not sure about the matrix displacing email just yet. modern email seems to be more than just sending messages to each other, there's sending/recieving/declining/accepting calendar invitations, sharing mailboxes, sharing email addresses, message templates and configurable signatures and sharing signature designs etc etc etc

from what i've seen matrix is more about instant messaging like whatsapp and signal than email replacement. Not saying it can't or won't but it has to cover a lot more ground to be an email alternative (case in point Teams hasn't replaced outlook, and microsoft doesn't seem to be intending to do that.....unlike what they did with skype)

[Mannshoch]

I think Activitypub is more similar to maill than Matrix. But In my case many usually mail specific use cases get replaced by Matrix or MS-Teams. The Problem is, that Matraix is more about a continuing flow of messages. I like using Mail if I need to archivate them. Mark for later use and so on.

[Fuseteam]

i mean yeah there is overlap, but i don't think can completely displace/replace one another

[Mannshoch]

Perhaps a sacrilegious thought. But why don't nextcloud/spreed and nextcloud/mail work together more?

I've had it several times that I actually would have preferred to treat a matrix chat like a mail. I want to archive history, mark messages as important, and reply to multiple messages in one go with the respective quotes. This is not offered by the usual Matrix apps.

At the same time, there have been several mails that I would prefer to be treated like a chat, e.g. all the notifications I receive from all the forums and other programs. But also other rather small-talk mails.

If I think it bigger. For me, it's not important if message arrive over imap, ActivityPub or Matrix. It's important how I could handle them. Do I need it as a simple chat or more complex like an E-Mail.

[motey]

I think we are going slightly offtopic here :) keep some radio discipline

[RokeJulianLockhart]

Does https://nextcloud.com/blog/bridging-chat-services-in-talk not remediate this?

[mstyp]

Does https://nextcloud.com/blog/bridging-chat-services-in-talk not remediate this?

Kinda-sorta-not-really. It uses matterbridge, which is pretty good, but compared to synapse/matrix's bridging capabilities its not even close. Matrix is much more featerful out of the box, and they seem best positioned (Inmyveryveryuninformedopinion) to prove moxie and his "the ecosystem is moving" blogpost wrong.

[ShadowJonathan]

Matrix's base data model allows for bridging to be as well-supported as native conversations, and it's openness allows anyone to write such a bridge, and allow it to work even over federation, if need be.

I'd say one of matrix's biggest strengths here is its openness and ecosystem that integrates into it, if nextcloud can take advantage of that, it could empower those users with it.

[sebastiaanveld]

Following the Fosdem session Opening up communication silos with Matrix 2.0 and the EU Digital Markets Act, this contains a maybe helpfull bit to enhance Talk for interoperability with other messaging systems while keeping e2e encryption. Seems a lighter Matrix variant called Linearized Matrix has been created. This is what (most) probably is used by WhatsApp and to be officially announed later this month (feb 2024) by Meta to comply with the DMA. Nothing official as that is part of a NDA.

[Thatoo]

Great hope for hub 8 but, as everywhere else these days, "artificial" won over human (social app is forgotten and inerropability of Nextcloud Talk isn't improved). I'm pleased to notice nextcloud Talk can now federate. That's great! Why not using matrix protocole for that in order to federate more widely? Keep hoping hub 9 will do.