logoalt Hacker News

louiskottmanntoday at 6:15 AM3 repliesview on HN

Remark half-way in the rant they are using dendrite, an experimental matrix server implementation that has been abandonned. Thus ranting about it is cheeky at best.

I have been using synapse for years with little issue.


Replies

JuniperMesostoday at 6:57 AM

> Dendrite is kind of deprecated as a homeserver these days, at least it doesn't seem to be the main focus of development and most recent commits are mere dependency bumps. Years ago, when the server was set up, choosing Dendrite seemed like a good decision, because it was easier to deploy and maintain than Synapse and there was a promise for a bright future for the first 2nd generation homeserver implementation. Unfortunately, migrating between Matrix homeserver implementations remains a problem with no satisfying solution, so we're kind of stuck on slowly rotting foundations.

Dendrite may or may not have been a good choice for a Matrix homeserver at the time the decision to start it was made, years ago. But the real problem, as the blog post points out, is that there is no good way to change that decision. Migrating to a new homeserver implementation is equivalent to destroying the old server and creating a new one from scratch - which also has the implication that any user whose account was on the old server loses that account and has to create a new one, because Matrix user accounts are tied to some homeserver (a bad design decision, I think). Tying system identity to someone else's server - and that server's domain name - is the cardinal sin of federated identity systems, the ActivityPub ecosystem has exactly the same problem.

show 1 reply
thegabrieletoday at 8:04 AM

Hi, could you describe the environment you're using it? Thank you

progvaltoday at 6:53 AM

This is addressed two paragraphs later:

> Years ago, when the server was set up, choosing Dendrite seemed like a good decision

> Unfortunately, migrating between Matrix homeserver implementations remains a problem with no satisfying solution, so we're kind of stuck on slowly rotting foundations.