Hi all,

Once again we celebrate the end of another year with the traditional Matrix Holiday Special! (see also 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015 just in case you missed them).

This year, it is an incredible relief to be able to sit down and write an update which is overwhelmingly positive - in stark contrast to the rather mixed bags of 2022 and 2023. This is not to say that things are perfect: most notably, The Matrix.org Foundation has not yet hit its funding goals, and urgently needs more organisations who depend on Matrix to join as members in order to be financially sustainable. However, in terms of progress of Matrix towards outperforming the centralised alternatives; growth of the ecosystem; the success of the first ever Matrix Conference; we couldn’t be happier - and hopefully the more Matrix matures, the more folks will want to join the Foundation to help fund it.

So, precisely why are we feeling so happy right now?

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🔗Community Year In Review 2024

Nico announces

So, how was your year? NO! DON'T TELL ME NOW! But read on!

Some might remember the year in review for 2023 or 2022, well, this year is still 2024 and I decided to do another one!

If you don't remember, here is the gist of it: It is a room, where you can post about what you did, experienced or otherwise found interesting in 2024. You can also give some predictions for 2025, if you are so bold! Then, on the 31st, I will compose those into a blog post and you can read what others had to say! Now, the exact dates are a bit muddy, last time I was late and there is no guarantee I won't be late this time, but you have until the 30st to compose something you want to share.

There are no exact restrictions on what projects can participate or that what you share has to be a project, but we try to ring out the year with positive vibes from the community in general. Please also try to look at the overall year, if you just want to report on the week, well, there is something called "This Week in Matrix" for that!

Now, you probably are asking the important question, where is that room? Well, you can guess it from last years alias, but for everyone else:

Join #year-in-2024:neko.dev!

Have a good one, merry christmas and see you next year!

Part time reporter, Nico

PS: If you want examples, check out https://blog.neko.dev/posts/matrix-year-in-review-2022.html or https://blog.neko.dev/posts/matrix-year-in-review-2023.html

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Hi all,

It’s been 6 months since the first ever Matrix Governing Board (GB) was formally elected & announced, and it has recently had its first official meeting. As such, we felt it was time that you, our constituents, had a report on how things are going and what we’ve been doing. We appreciate that the work of the GB is often in the background, and we want to be as transparent as we can.

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Hey all,

Another 9 MSCs have been released today in Matrix 1.13! It’s just over 2 months since Matrix 1.12 went out, and the last scheduled release for 2024 - the next release is planned for around FOSDEM 2025. Today’s release contains more T&S features and a number of clarifications and improvements. The full changelog is at the end of this post, per usual :)

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Matthew reports

Last week US Senators Wyden (D) and Schmitt (R) wrote an open letter to the US Department of Defense encouraging them to adopt Matrix more widely, rather than wasting money on unencrypted, centralised or closed systems. The letter also reveals a whole bunch of info at the end about the US Navy's Matrix deployments. This feels like a huge step change forwards - not only is the FBI encouraging citizens to use end-to-end-encryption in the wake of realisations that the public telephone network is insecure, but US Senate is pushing for Matrix adoption (without any lobbying from us, I hasten to add). You can read more about it at the Element blog (Element provides the deployments for the US Navy).

P.S. it really is bleakly amusing that we've been constantly pointing out that legislation like EU's ChatControl and the UK's Online Safety Act are catastrophically flawed because the surveillance backdoors they propose will be exploited and abused by attackers. And here we are, with the lawful intercept backdoors in the US public phone system being compromised by attackers, causing the FBI to recommend non-backdoored E2EE instead. We live in a very strange timeline.

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🔗Welcoming Ercom as a Silver Member

Josh Simmons (m.org) says

We'd like to welcome Ercom as the newest Silver Member of the Matrix.org Foundation and are excited to announce a couple other new members before the end of the year 🚀

The Matrix.org Foundation stewards the Matrix protocol specification, facilitates open governance, and convenes the ecosystem. While Matrix continues growing in adoption, the Foundation's funding is not keeping pace. If your organization builds on Matrix and is invested in its future, the time to become a funding member is now.

🔗Matrix.org protocol is not MATRIX

Josh Simmons (m.org) announces

From the department of no-the-other-Matrix: This week saw news of Europol shutting down an encrypted messaging service called MATRIX. All indications are that this has nothing to do with the Matrix protocol, and we are grateful to the agencies and publications that have made an effort to disambiguate. We are, of course, monitoring the situation as more information becomes available.

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The Matrix.org Foundation has been made aware that an international investigative operation took down a service called MATRIX which was used by a cybercriminal network, which has no relationship with the Matrix.org Foundation or the Matrix protocol itself.

The takedown site has a Matrix-the-movie branding, which is a probable source of confusion. The app showcased doesn’t look like any of the Matrix clients we’re aware of.

In a statement to the Matrix.org Foundation, Europol confirmed that the MATRIX cybercriminal network and the Matrix protocol are entirely unrelated. Europol states:

The Matrix protocol (matrix.org) is by no means connected to the Matrix secured communication service that was targeted in OTF Continental.

A statement from the Dutch police confirms that this is unrelated: "Matrix is ​​also the name of a company and communications protocol of the same name, which has nothing to do with the crypto communications service Matrix."

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Thib (m.org) says

Don't forget that Matrix will be in full force @ FOSDEM:

• The CfP for the Matrix Devroom closes on Sunday, December 1
• We already have quite a few volunteers to help us with the booth, but we're always looking for more hands! People who sign up before December 15 are entitled to a limited edition t-shirt :)
• Two organizations have already shown their commitment to the community by offering to sponsor the Fringe Event right before FOSDEM. Pizzas and drinks will be covered, but if other organizations want to sponsor too we can work on more opportunities together!

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Thib (m.org) announces

We want to know everything about the bugs you squashed, the features you developed, and the docs you wrote. And even better, not only do we want to know about it, we want you to tell the Matrix community about it during our FOSDEM Fringe event, or even to tell the world about it in our FOSDEM Devroom!

Our Call for Proposals is still open for the DevRoom until December 1, so don't miss your chance to advertise your project!

But we're not limiting our presence to a DevRoom, we will also organize a fringe event before FOSDEM and have a booth during the wole event. Want to grab a limited edition T-shirt? Now's your chance to sign-up and help us staff the booth. All details are in our blog post.

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The Matrix.org Foundation and community are very happy to announce that this year, they will be in full force at FOSDEM, with a community event right before the conference, a booth to welcome everyone during the conference, and a dev room to explore topics in depth!

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