Company Element acquires grid Ρ GitLabto adapt the service to work in a federated network Matrix. This is the first major messenger that is planned to be transparently transferred to the decentralized network, along with all users and message history.
Gitter is a free centralized tool for group communication between developers. In addition to the typical team chat functionality, which is essentially similar to proprietary Slack, Gitter also provides tools for tight integration with collaborative development platforms like GitLab and GitHub. In the past, the service was proprietary, until it was acquired by GitLab.
Matrix is ββa free protocol for implementing a federated network based on an acyclic event graph (DAG). The main implementation of this network is a messenger with support for end-to-end encryption and VoIP (audio and video calls, group conferences). The client and server reference implementations are being developed by Element, a commercial company that also leads the Matrix.org Foundation, a nonprofit organization that oversees the development of the Matrix protocol specification.
At the moment, Gitter and Matrix users communicate using a "bridge" matrix-appservice-gitter, a relay for sending messages between them. When sending a message, for example, from Gitter to a chat with Matrix integration enabled, the βbridgeβ creates a virtual user for the sender from Gitter on the Matrix server, on behalf of which the message is delivered to the chat from the Matrix side, and vice versa, respectively. Connecting such integration is possible directly from the chat settings on the Matrix side, but this method of communication will be marked as obsolete.
In the short term, users will not notice any visible changes: they will be able to use the messenger in the same way as before the purchase. In the future, the process of transformation from a centralized service to a decentralized federation subject will be completed thanks to the organization of a new Matrix server and the integration of the "bridge", by analogy with matrix-appservice-gitter, directly into the Gitter codebase. Existing Gitter chats will be available as Matrix rooms like "#angular_angular:gitter.im" with the message history imported.
After successful integration, users of both networks will benefit: Matrix users will be able to communicate transparently with Gitter users, and Gitter users will be able to use Matrix clients, such as mobile, since development of official Gitter apps has been discontinued. Ultimately, it will be possible to consider that Gitter will become one of the clients of the Matrix network. But, unfortunately, Gitter is significantly inferior in capabilities than the reference Matrix client - Element, so instead of bringing Gitter to parity in functionality with Element, it was decided to implement all the missing features from Gitter in Element. In the long run, Gitter will be replaced by Element.
Of the useful features of Gitter that can be adapted for Element:
- High performance when viewing chats with a significant number of users and messages;
- Tight integration with collaborative development platforms like GitLab and GitHub
- Hierarchical catalog of chats;
- Search engine friendly static view of public chats;
- Markup support in KaTeX;
- Tree branching of messages (threads).
Element promises that the Gitter front-end will be replaced by Element only when Element achieves parity in functionality. Until then, the Gitter codebase will be kept up to date with no regressions in functionality.
Gitter employees will also work for the benefit of Element.
Source: linux.org.ru