Thibault Martin created an issue #467:
We have an issue with the Matrix instance element runs for us which is a bit Engagement-related.
The fine folks at Element offered to host a Matrix instance for GNOME, as they did for our friends at KDE.
The ids on Matrix are built a bit like emails. For email we have user domain tld, while a Matrix handles are built as follow @user:domain.tld
As of today the ids of the Matrix instance hosted by Elemebt are @user:gnome.org, so it already bears the GNOME "brand".
This is possible because we added a SRV record in our gnome.org domain.
To reach that instance, people need either to connect on the web client which is reachable at https://gnome.element.io, or to use Fractal for which they need to type in the following server: gnome.modular.im
This is the exact middle-ground where we don’t wan’t to be: the onboarding experience is quite confusing because of this. It reflects poorly on Matrix which is a great partner, on us because it looks like we didn’t finish configuring it properly, and on Fractal maintainers because the GNOME-branded Matrix instance is hard to set-up.
We have several ways out to fix this:
- Add a
.well-knownfile on gnome.org so people can inputgnome.orgin Fractal and be logged in seamlessly. This means the instance is still hosted by Element people but managed by us - Self-host our own instance and migrate information from Element’s instance to our own instance
- Ask Element to tear down the instance and remove the record from our domain
Note that this issue is about "finishing configuring and integrating the instance", which does not necessarily makes it our "official" IM. We can keep Rocket, IRC, and still have a fully configured Matrix instance.
It does not address the issue of bridges with IRC either.