yup, sounds about right. and is a ~3 person project.
the fun bit of p2p matrix is that it uses normal matrix clients and client server API, which is super rich. and it uses normal server to server API too… just over a p2p overlay. wish we could work on it atm.
unfortunately it’s blocked on funding currently :|
so yes, warm fuzzy feeling for lots of people using the protocol & tech, hooray. but on the other hand, you end up writing stuff like matrix.org/blog/2024/04... :D
Short term, yes. Long term, prolly not? The equiv for bsky might be Twitter suddenly running atproto & forks of social-app in such a way that their users have no reason to use bsky's app or servers (i.e. atproto taken entirely for granted), and then discovering nobody wants to fund the commons.
makes sense; same reason we originally chose Apache for everything. It’s hilariously biting us in the ass now though, where proprietary forks grab all the $ and go crazy without any costs of all the base R&D. But that’s prolly because Matrix clients are v useful for enterprise => feeding frenzy.
I ended up writing a blogpost to try to capture this in more detail, fwiw: matrix.org/blog/2024/04...
Open source infrastructure *must* be a publicly funded service, and funders need to support maintenance – not just new feature development This is on our minds this week in the wake of the xz news, and as we seek funding to support Matrix. Read the latest from project lead, @arathorn.net:
Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications
The only wildcard solution i've come up with so far is to try to lobby govts into directly funding maint of FOSS infrastructure from the taxpayer, rather than trying to compel those exploiting FOSS to actually contribute back $. Just as the taxpayer pays for highways, rather than trucking companies.