from 0x815@feddit.org to technology@beehaw.org on 30 Nov 2024 12:23
https://feddit.org/post/5232254
Sixteen Next Generation Internet (NGI) projects are pleased to announce the transition to Mastodon and PeerTube, two European open-source platforms, for their communication and content-sharing needs. This strategic move aligns with NGI’s commitment to fostering an Internet that embodies European values of trust, security, and inclusion.
“Utilising European-developed platforms like Mastodon and PeerTube enhances digital sovereignty, ensuring that Europe’s digital infrastructure is built on values of openness, collaboration, and respect for fundamental rights. This transition marks a significant step toward a more human-centric Internet, reflecting NGI’s vision for a trustworthy, open, and inclusive digital future,” NGI writes on its website.
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It's somewhat funny how most Lemmy mods seem to discuss things on Discord or Matrix, rather than Lemmy (based on the chatter, though I am not a mod here so what do I know, really?).
Anyway the article itself is awesome news, though odd that accepting the cookie policy took almost a minute, and a bunch of stuff does not render well in my Firefox on Android web browser (switching to Landscape rather than Portrait helped). I also found the table layout to be highly confusing - does every one of those projects use ngi@video.ngi.eu, bc that's normally what those lack of border lines would mean, or does only NGI Zero Commons Fund use it? Either way the meaning isn't clear at all, but there are so many problems with that site that it could just be another html rendering mistake.
My instance uses a self hosted XMPP for mods/Admins to communicate quickly, which works quite well.
Matrix is essentially secure XMPP.
For fast and secure communications, I’d expect Fediverse mods and admins to be using it, as it doesn’t take much more to set up and use than less secure XMPP variants, and lines up with the ActivityPub worldview.
But I guess people go with what they know, and some people know standard XMPP or Discord.
XMPP has quite good encryption nowadays, and at least according to our sysadmin, it’s quite a bit lighter on system requirements. I think there was also some concerns about the matrix foundation being pretty corporate oriented.
Problem is most of the xmpp clients don’t have support for the latest encryption versions
Matrix has absolutely bonkers resource requirements relative to the end user experience it delivers, and can be much more complex to deploy. Some of that is intrinsic to federation or to its protocol; some is related to Synapse specifically. I’m not sure whether competing server implementations will catch up before Synapse gets a rewrite in a more performant language, but I’m eager for one or the other to happen.
I admin a public Matrix server, so I’m not by any means against the product, but IMO there’s a reason it hasn’t meaningfully displaced XMPP yet.
Synapse is a mess, which is why Element is looking to eventually drop it for Dendrite. There’s also Conduit.
Are Dendrite and/or Conduit feature complete/comparable yet?
Not yet, but Conduit is fairly close if I’m not mistaken.
github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/issues/3413
The problem with XMPP is its encryption UX is dreadful, Matrix got it right with comparing emoji to verify. Also Matrix, despite everything does try to keep its encryption up to date and so all the clients try to follow suit, the same cannot be said for xmpp
Most of the time we need real-time chat (Mods on Discord) or real-time secure chat (Admins on Matrix).
I like seeing the EU more and more adopting open source and decentralized technologies. Looks like the EU will be the leading role in that regard. The US might not do this, because they like to collect information and don’t want to give information to the enemy. I guess something like that. And Japan? No idea what the state of this topic is in Japan.
Just faxed them about it. Will get back to you as soon as they respond.
this is pretty cool! first time hearing abt it.
Can someone ELI5 what this NGI actually is/does? I went to the website and left more confused
I’m new to this too, but the slide deck they have posted seems a good starting place.
The NGI is an initiative of the European Commission to fund “researchers, developers, startups, and SMEs” who are aligned with the “aim to shape the development and evolution of the Internet” according to the principles of:
protecting personal data
ensuring privacy and security
combating disinformation
guaranteeing access and freedom of choice
respecting fundamental rights
enforcing ethics and sustainability by design.
I’m a little less clear on what the 16 projects are (which are listed on slides 6 and 7), but I gather they might be specific objectives, defined by the NGI, within which their funding is categorized, e.g., if you’re doing research on democratizing search capabilities, that research would serve the NGI’s “Search” project and would qualify for funding.
I’m making a lot of assumptions but I’m reasonably confident in them.