Matrix.org is an ambitious open source project which defines a new protocol for open, decentralised, encrypted communication: adding a common denominator to the internet for securely publishing and subscribing to data (especially IM and VoIP) in realtime; liberating communication from being trapped in silos like WhatsApp, Slack, Discord and similar.
We maintain the specification for Matrix as well as release open source reference implementations of servers, clients, SDKs, bots and bridges to support the wider Matrix ecosystem. As of Aug 2018 Matrix has around 5.5M reachable users and over 8000 server instances, ranging from individual personal servers through to massive deployments for governments and telcos - and a huge community of open source contributors building alternative clients, bots, bridges, servers etc.
Today Matrix is in late beta, but as of the end of 2017 the protocol is feature frozen as we converge on a 1.0 release later in 2018. In this talk we'll give an overview of the Matrix protocol, the ecosystem, the road to 1.0 and show off all the latest clients and capabilities - including some of the more exciting non-IM usages, such as VR communication!