Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello all right I was just saying hello a moment ago and so hopefully you got the gist of it I'm just going to dive right in because we'll be very very tight on time
All right, so first of all why does sustainability matter like why do we why do we even care about so I think most people in this room can probably construct an argument about why sustainability matters
That open source software can really but why particularly for decentralized networks and I want to present you this right to think about
Decentralization without sustainability is just deferred centralization and if there's one thing that you take from this this talk, it's basically this side
Right, this is hopefully the most important part of it if you need to leave now then now if you're option and you can go
But this is really what we're going to be talking about and now this applies to matrix but applies to pretty much any decentralized system if you think about the internet a large over
You know the last decade or so we see it increasingly centralized and that is because we have not found good ways to sustainably invest in all the different components that you need to have a truly decentralized internet
It applies to political systems as well you have to invest in your decentralized knows otherwise at all the power just gets sucked into the middle
So what does that mean when we say sustainability and the context of matrix like what's our what are we talking about and the way I think about it with matrix we want to have the same impact in the next 50 years as email had on the last 50 that's the sort of ambition that we need to be having
But if you want that to be true then you're going to need to think about sustainability in a very specific way you're going to make decisions where this future can actually exist
Okay, so a little bit of history I think some people know this but we'll just go through it quickly so you sort of understand the context
2014 the matrix founding team came together working in a much larger organization doing this doing this matrix thing
And it started to go pretty well and they actually spun out and created element and you vector in order to in order to fund themselves
Started making some money out of out of feature sponsorship this was this was also successful it felt it felt good and going back for a point around decentralization
Realize that this moment it'd be a good time to create an independent foundation that was nonprofit and so you've got the matrix foundation and you have an element as the profit entity
From last time you're doing a little bit more feature sponsorship things were sort of sort of okay, but there's a problem
Why is the true cost of feature development is it writing the feature itself is the design is it the LMM generated blog post claiming victory once you ship it
Or maybe it's the maintenance and this builds up over time right it's cumulative the more complex your systems become the more maintenance that you have now who in this room thinks it's good to invest in maintenance of open source software projects
Paray, lots of hands up who in this room today is willing to write me a check for unspecified maintenance in a matrix ecosystem project
Right for those of you watching the live stream you can't see the whole audience hands hands hands were down and this is a problem
Right, but there are plenty of professional services companies that make this kind of thing work or you do is you charge a little bit extra for your for your teams time and that and that margin allows you to invest back in the project you can do this
Problem is element does a bunch of other stuff that we think is necessary for the long term sustainability of matrix
But does not fit in that professional services model and so this isn't the whole list but the sorts of things
We are significant sponsors of the spec core team but probably more importantly the spec authorship we've spend a lot of time there
We bought out the element clients for ourselves but also for the ecosystem growth general and we saw Dave talking about that earlier
We maintain the matrix to walk home, so for instance, we maintain the rest SDK, we maintain the JS SDK
We look after synapse and now there's an admin console
We do a bunch of work about protocol research the sort of much longer term things that we do
And we provide the foundation of trust and safety and compliance and security we do public policy advisory so
Poor admin dean and Denise have to keep going around Europe telling people that into an encryption is not about terrorism and there's actually some good things about it
And finally provide things like finance and legal and business operations for the foundation
Now I'm not trying to say that element does everything here
That's not true the direction of travel is that more and more folks across the whole ecosystem are finding ways to really meaningfully support the foundation and matrix project, particularly coming out of the governing board
But it's a lot and it doesn't add up
So it's worse than that though because you can't just pray that the commercial deployments are going to fund your upstream
There are some exceptions, but generally that does not happen and it's going to get worse over time because the more successful matrix becomes
The more and more we see very large organizations not invested in the ecosystem at all
Just kind of show up and provide a matrix installation, but they don't contribute back
And while that annoys me they're totally cool to do that the licensing says they can they're not doing anything wrong
So what are you going to do?
Now we have seen lots of different approaches to this in the open source world
We've seen people looking at licensing and particularly non OSI licensing
We know why they've gone that way, that's not what we would do within the matrix ecosystem
But you've got to find some way to capture value
It's going to be something that you hold back if you're going to not go down this feature sponsorship route
So when are you going to draw the line?
The way we think about this with an element we think anything that empowers the end user
That is false anything that empowers an enterprise over the end user or in way that an end user wouldn't really care about
That goes into paid and by end user I'm talking like someone that would use a client or I'm just talking about someone that would administer a server
So examples of what we would put into發 something like straight line performance, cryptography or core features, like spaces or threads
All of that stuff that is false
But things like clustering and high availability
If you want to run a million person installation where you've got quite special this needs
Just an admin trying to run it for your friends and family, you probably don't want that complexity
If you want integration into a corporate directory, that's probably paid
If you want to see a ray compliance, that's again something that we will consider as part of the paid offer
We did two other things, we did change license, we moved from Apache 2 to AgPL
This sort of ensures that companies that do fork the upstream
They can either publish their changes or contribute them back somehow
And we have a CLA which allows us to give exceptions to that
Not all CLAs are equal, the element CLA actually has a specific term there that says if you contribute to it
Whatever happens your contribution will always be made available for us
So if we have a change of leadership element or something or we bought by somebody
Your contribution is always for us
Not all CLAs have that
So did this work?
Well, here's a disturb organisation that I able to support this model
And you've got folks like NATO in the European Commission
And I'm going to call it our friends at FK, I'm not going to pronounce them because I'm scared to do so
But their logo is tiny
There we go, there we go
What he said
So, okay, cool story
We found a way to make some money but what's that got to do with open source software
So let's talk about that
Because this gives us some freedom
This allows us to think about how
What's the long term horizon, how can we invest in the matrix ecosystem at large
Because that's why we're getting out of bed in the morning
So I want to talk a bit about matrix 2.0
I want to talk about LMAX transition, we're going to talk about ESAS community
Accessibility, matrix RTC, rough-sister can, some protocol design
We're going to do it super super quick and then there's going to be some demos
And then I'll get off and you can go on with your day
First of all, matrix 2.0
This is this idea of a whole bunch of different MSEs that we think together
allows us to really level up the sort of experiences that you can provide
In a messaging app so that you can compete with centralised alternatives
There are 28 of these MSEs
27 of them were authored by element folks
If you want to know the 28 that was written by your hand as Marbek
But the 27 of them are from element
And we're real close now
We've got matrix RTC, we just sort of talk on what remains there
And we have some sliding sink extensions
What we've got that then we can call this, we can call this a little bit
Done, little bit
That's why element x transition, first of all is this manner for matrix
For those of you that don't know, we've got our old mobile apps and then we've got element x
And we've been trying to migrate across to that over the last couple of years
It's been quite a painful process
But why isn't that just element hygiene?
Well, the thing is the element apps are still the dominant apps in the ecosystem
If you join matrix, you'll probably start with element
And that will ultimately judge people will judge matrix by it
So it's important that people are on the best experience
We believe that best experiences element x
It's certainly a lot better than the element classic apps
And we're super, super close now, the big things that I think stop people with migrating
Or maybe spaces or threads
The migration process itself is a little bit rough as well
And we're fixing that
But there's also a sort of long tale of sort of smaller features
And we're going to get that all done by April
And then at that point you're going to start hearing us talking a lot more
And more assertively about hey really, really you want to be using element x
If people in this room cannot use element x I'd love to hear why that is after the talk
And yeah, just to give you a very brief demo people don't see it
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do, can I do this?
Oh woah, woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woahhhh, that's the one I want
That's the one I want that's seen if we can get this going
Yeah here we are, here we are
I don't know, I've done that wrong.
All right, so here's a real max, here's a room list.
We've got spaces here.
You've got Foss Dam, 2026, you've got the dev rooms.
Let's see if we can get the decentralized room up,
we're loading it.
Hello.
There we go.
Very good.
Okay, so, other than next, give it a go.
If you haven't already.
Right, ESS community.
So, first of all, why does this matter?
So, the ESS community is a distribution of matrix stack.
When we started this project, what we were hearing about,
this sort of matrix 2.0 ideas,
it was quite hard to get everything together.
Because you needed, not only a synapse,
you needed mass, you needed a sliding sync proxy in that era,
you needed a live kit back in.
This is getting a bit complicated.
And there wasn't a really nice way to do that.
So, that's why we started building out ESS community.
There are other two-point-O distributions available now,
and they've all got different slightly different design goals.
But this is the one that we're working at element.
And the nice thing about this is because it's sort of,
got the same lineage as I've paid offering.
All of the sort of robustness things
have been thinking about for folks like NATO.
That is their architecturally in ESS community.
Now, as a demo, I'd to show you how easy it is to get going with this.
I'm going to create one of these from scratch
during this call, according to this talk.
But it takes about a minute to get going.
So I'm going to start it now,
and then by the end of it, it will be there,
and then I'll give you a little tour around it.
All right, so just bear with me.
While we do exactly that, we will start here.
We'll create our namespace.
This is the command to get it going,
and what you can see there is various different config files
that we've got.
Two men.
Is that OK?
Two men.
LAUGHTER
All right.
And over here, which also needs zooming in,
is my netty K9 Kubernetes, a viewer which
Quentin introduced me to.
So this is just the proof.
I'm actually doing something behind the scenes.
These pods are going to go off.
And it's going to do stuff for the next minute,
and then we're going to come back and see if it actually works.
OK.
All right.
What is next?
List, I think, we're in accessibility.
Why does this matter for matrix?
So I think this is an easy thing to argue.
You've got to spend the time here.
You've got to invest.
It's obviously one of those things.
But sometimes it doesn't get the love that it requires.
If we want matrix speed for everyone,
then we better make sure we're making time for accessibility.
Matrix obviously.
We just had a massive talk on matrix ITC.
So I'm not spent too much time here,
but I want to say two things.
Firstly, VoIP is an expected part of a chat-up.
That's why we have to work here.
But matrix VoIP needs to have the same cryptographic guarantees
as for messaging.
You have to be confident that you know who you're talking to.
It's taken a long time to get this going.
And that is because we've had to build out completely new concepts
within matrix to support these kinds of use cases.
We didn't know we had to do this right at the beginning
of the project.
But we've now got something that we really
think works well together.
Last SDK, we talked about a lot that the rest
is to cater to day.
I mean, we want to SDK that everyone can rely on
and build their own clients on.
And that's really what we're going for.
We considered this to be quite a success story
within the Matrix eCo system.
It's under the foundations organization.
But element does sort of runs the governance for the project.
But 25% of everything that is PR
against this repo comes from outside of element.
So we feel quite good about that
and the direction of travel is more and more and more.
And then finally, probably most importantly,
is protocol research.
Matthew spent a bunch of time explaining some of the things
that we're doing here.
This is important because we need to ensure
that matrix stays current.
We can all name other protocols over the years
that weren't able to evolve and iterate.
And if you do that, you stagnate.
So a lot of the work that we're thinking about right now
is our Federation Security, particularly
with Hydra, with thinking about MLS,
and we're thinking about peer-to-peer.
All right, what's coming next?
We're, how we're doing for time.
OK, great.
Matrix IDC lands, invisible crypto.
You'll need to set hopefully.
And this really sort of runs out of the Matrix 2.0 set.
We sold that element classic Hydra lands.
We do some peer-to-peer work, element X,
where but Dave was exploring, we talked about earlier,
an element called out of beta.
These, I think, are going to be a big highlight in the coming.
Yeah.
Right, demos.
We're going to be very tight for time.
We can either do demos or we can do questions.
If we do demos, it's going to be super cool.
And I might just fall on my face, or we could do questions.
Who here would like demos?
And who would, right, brilliant, very good, very good.
That is the correct answer.
So you may remember from earlier in this talk,
that we set things going.
This is our K9 Viewers, so you can see the various different pods.
You can see we've got synaps there at the bottom,
but the various other pods as well.
So let's go back and just make sure we've got a nice happy message there.
Do I need to go in further?
Further, still, right.
There you go.
And you can see the end points that it's created for me here.
One thing we need to do, we need to create a user.
So let's do that, and we've got this helpful tool,
and we'll call it Neal, FontsDem.
We're going to make them an admin,
so I can show you the admin console.
And we are going to set a password, that's well.
OK.
Yes.
Right, you've got to use it.
Let's go and see if any of this worked.
The last time I did this, it didn't work,
because I got rate limited by Let's Encrypt.
And I can't test it because I don't want to get rate limited by
Let's Encrypt in the live one.
So there is quite large jeopardy here,
but hopefully this can all go well.
So let's see.
Let's see.
OK, that's all right.
Continue.
This looks promising.
Continue.
All right.
And we're in.
All right.
So everyone's seen this.
This is just this is the element web.
But let's have a quick look at the admin console behind it.
And what this tells you, you've got your dashboard.
It tells you how many users you've got.
And oh, that is cash.
That is not what I'm expecting to say.
That's really quite interesting.
I don't know why it's doing that.
All right.
Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, not we're about that.
Let's invite some people in.
And let's just prove to you that the federation works
and that things like calling works.
There's some guy called Matthew.
He normally likes to cheat.
That doesn't mean this invite Matthew in.
No, I'm here.
Yeah, yeah, otherwise I was going to do it with myself.
This is a better demo.
How are we getting on here?
It's on the element client.
Are you saying it's my element?
Yes, I am.
If you're not ready for that,
what if you're told in my fabulous?
I can invite me, just in case.
Let's do it.
It's a request.
Let's look at it.
Oh, typing on a stage like this is a lot harder
than typing otherwise.
Okay.
Let's talk to me and set.
All right.
The better luck, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
right, uh, what is that?
You got in.
It's better with it's for you.
All right, so, first of all,
first of all, proof it's done already.
All right.
Let's just prove that element call is doing its thing.
Witing, waiting.
Let's go to the two.
Who's this?
Who's this guy?
Yeah.
All right, very good.
Very good, very good.
All right.
Very good.
All right.
Very good.
All right.
And I'm going to wrap up and then get off the stage.
So, what have we got as the final thing?
Takeaways, things that'd like you to take away.
Decentralization without sustainability
is just a third centralization, right?
This is the main thing.
Other things though, use element X.
If you don't already, give ESS community a try out.
I managed to install it and set it up.
Once getting a talk out for them,
that is how easy this to get going.
And then just an obvious thing.
If you're going to support an open source project,
pay for vendors that are going to contribute
to their upstream, that's the best thing
that you can possibly do.
Elements one, there are others available as well.
Right, that's it.
Thank you very much.
I think we're all time.
Thank you.
My big time for questions.
Then my big time for questions.
What do you have for questions that you want?
Well, I'll make some speakers here, so yeah.
All right.
I can do questions if you want a question.
Question over here.
If there's a little chat in this stuff,
just make sure it's in, like, you do this, like,
as much as you don't know, that's what I'm going to do today.
How do they use them?
Yeah, I don't know.
It sounds very cool.
That's like it's been a long time ago.
Yeah.
But my government is using open source
and you have to utilize the communication software.
Yeah, so they are long-term customers with element.
And they use that within this we discover from them.
I don't know too much about their source.
Sorry, the question was who are FK.
I don't know too much about their use case,
and maybe someone else here can
probably speak to it a little bit more concretely.
But their big users of the web clients
and they use that across government.
They also just want to make a sort of occupational law.
And they're interested in more about FK
and the related to the room over there.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
All right.
In that case, I'll let someone else introduce you it.