We continue to explore how to best and most effectively collaborate with the Foundation on publishing news, with the FOSDEM announcement by the Events WG following the newest suggested process with success!
We have suggested to adopt an AI policy to the Foundation, and it was decided to adopt it on the website for now.
In collaboration with the Room Directory WG, you can now find the form as well as further information about the room directory of the matrix.org homeserver on a dedicated page
weeman has added TWIM to the website navbar, so you don't have to remember the shortlink anymore to get your news!
vedant-vijay fixed an issue with the filters on the SDKs page
Jack S. has spotted some bugs and opportunities to polish which we were glad to merge!
We are maintaining the information about the Foundation, including it's members and are working with the Governing Board to keep its documentation up to date, as well as the Working Groups
We have introduced a bunch of labels to the website issue tracker to help us sort tasks, and especially to point out some tasks that would be easy to implement even by external contributors
We keep developing guidelines for ourselves to improve the consistency and professionality of the website step by step and of publications in general step by step, while also trying to keep an eye on making it as simple as possible to start contributing
The #matrix.org-website:matrix.org room was upgraded and as part of that not only receives GitHub webhooks about activities on the matrix.org repo, but also the other repos required for the WG's daily work, including twim-config and the conference website repo
Of course, we continue to publish TWIM every Friday 😉
As you can see, there is a lot going on! If you're interested in getting involved, you can find us in the #matrix.org-website:matrix.org room, or of course grab an issue and send a PR! We also try to meet in a call regularly on Thursday afternoons, which we announce at #matrix.org-website:matrix.org.
Cutting the ribbon on the reopened matrix.org room directory!
Back in early September, the room directory working group started an initial beta test run. For the first time in months, it was possible again to get new rooms into the directory.
Since then, we’ve reworked the multiple forms into one universal one to make things easier for users. We also identified several pain points in the process and validated that our imagined workflow actually works in practice.
There are still improvements we’re actively working on, but we’re already happy with the current stage.
There is now a dedicated subpage for the room directory on the matrix.org homepage —you can find it here— where users can easily access all relevant info. Please share it around!
Element has joined other European organisations in an open letter to European leaders on the latest developments regarding Chat Control.
We are concerned that the Danish Presidency’s current proposal on the Regulation for Child Sexual Abuse could introduce backdoors and client-side scanning, creating risks for security, innovation and digital sovereignty in Europe.
We urge European leaders to ensure that any approach protects encryption, privacy, and the trust that underpins Europe’s digital ecosystem.
We're looking for interesting questions around [matrix], its history, its technology, statistics and fun facts for The Matrix Unconference Pub [quizzz] !
This week we're delighted to welcome a new Associate Member to the Foundation: the Moonlight Institute!
Does your community or nonprofit use Matrix, or advocate for free and open source software, interoperability, privacy, or decentralisation? Join us for free as an Associate Member to show your support and participate in the open governance of Matrix.
Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.
Due to things going on which I can't get into, I will not take new applications to Draupnir4All. Additionally, I plan to shut down the system at the end of the year. I suggest looking for alternatives, as I am unlikely to extend this timeframe.
I am at this time not aware of alternatives beyond selfhosting a draupnir. Draupnir4All is selfhostable by anyone via the appservice module of draupnir however.
We (Cat, Sky and I) are setting up a new server to help replace MTRNord's Draupnir4All service. Asgard will offer both Meowlnir and Draupnir instances to room admins who need a moderation bot, but can't host one themselves (or who want a secondary bot as backup). Expect more news in the coming weeks.
Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.
This big news this week is the Project Hydra coordinated security release. On August 11th, 2025, updated homeserver implementations were put out to address the vulnerabilities. And the following Thursday, August 14th, the associated spec updates were put out as well (which divulge further details).
The largest part of this is the new Room Version 12, which had a spec PR merged on the same. It explains the changes servers and clients need to make to address the vulnerabilities.
The relevant MSCs and spec PRs were merged and homeserver and client implementations should have already (or should do now if they haven't) updated to support the new changes. However, the changes to the spec won't actually appear in a new spec release until the next release cycle, keeping in line with the usual spec process. The next release is due to go out in the next few weeks as we approach the end of Q3 2025.
Please join us in welcoming < polycule >, a geeky and efficient Matrix client, as the newest Ecosystem Member of the Foundation! ✨
Does your community use Matrix? Or do you maintain a community project that builds on Matrix? Join the Foundation as a member! This helps us demonstrate the breadth of the ecosystem, and all members are entitled to participate in our Governing Board elections.
On Wednesday we pre-disclosed a major security update on the horizon (codename Hydra) to improve state resets and related federation issues in Matrix. This requires a coordinated security release across all Matrix servers, so that servers running in untrusted federations (e.g. the public Matrix network) can speak the upcoming new room version (v12).
We have just pushed back the date for the coordinated security release to Aug 11th 2025, as we've heard a lot of feedback that 6 days wasn't enough for clients/bots/bridge/tooling developers to test the changes introduced by room v12, and that it also doesn't give enough time for community admins to prepare for the necessary room upgrades. Underestimating the time needed here for client/community testing is entirely our fault, due to being overfocused on coordinating the significant serverside work needed. Pushing back the release date by 3 weeks gives everyone more time to test and prepare. We've also opened up registration on the beta.matrix.org homeserver, which is already running v12 rooms by default, to make it easier for client developers to test their clients. We've also made one clarification below for client developers, explaining the new permissions needed to send m.room.tombstone events.
Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.
🔗MSC highlight: Room IDs as hashes of the create event
You may have noticed some placeholder MSCs being opened in the past half a year. One of them has now received content ahead of the others:
MSC4291 redefines room IDs to be the hash of the m.room.create event. As a part of the change, the server name component is being removed. If any software you maintain assumes that the server name is present in room IDs, you should stop parsing room IDs or at least fail gracefully if the server name isn't there.
We're going to propose FCP on MSC4291 in the next few days and a new stable room version including that and other security-sensitive changes from the placeholder MSCs is expected to follow relatively soon as well.
