>>> 2024-05-06 matrix (PDF)

For those of you who are members of the Matrix project, I wanted to let you know that I am running for the Governing Board, and a bit about why. For those of you who are not, I hope you will forgive the intrusion. Maybe you'll find my opinions on the topic interesting anyway.

I am coming off of a period of intense involvement in an ill-fated government commission, and I wanted to find another way to meaningfully contribute to the governance of something I care about. Auspiciously, the newly constituted Matrix foundation is forming a governing board. I am up for one of the individual member seats.

Instant messaging is a fascinating case study in the history of technology. It is nearly as old as networked computing, and you could make a decent argument that it is older, running only into dithering around the definitions. We've always wanted to communicate, and text has always been an obvious option. It is probably because of the obviousness of instant messaging that it has repeatedly been coopted by commercial interests.

You don't have to be very old to have lived through several iterations of this process. I'm not quite the right person to remember ICQ fondly; for me it was AIM. But what I remember most fondly is more obscure: XFire. It had an in-game overlay and killcounter integration, both critical features for my computer habits that consisted heavily of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. That isn't actually important, I'm just reminiscing, but I think most people have a story like this.

Leave a Comment