| > The whole point of Matrix is to be decentralised. In particular people should be able to keep talking when on different sides of a netsplit, by design. OK but I still don't see the problem. Even with a fully decentralized system where the servers are just pure relays with no authority, you have two options: 1. Display messages in the order in which they claim to have been sent, or 2. Display messages in the order of arrival Case #2 is the obvious/uninteresting one, there's nothing to say about it. Case #1 is what people are saying is so impossible to achieve a global order for, but really, what's the big deal? If a client claims to have sent a message at an unusual time (say, > 10 seconds in the past, or after the app was already quit, or whatever criteria you want to set), then just insert it at that point in the conversation, and visually indicate to the user the discrepancy. And clock skews won't really be much of a problem because messages can easily indicate prior messages in the conversation, so that a mere clock skew doesn't insert them before preceding messages. What's so hard to make user-friendly/intuitive here? |
I don't know that OP would be happy with that, and certainly someone would need to a) actually design the UI for it b) figure out what information the client needs from the server to implement that, and whether it's possible for the server to provide that information.
I think you're probably right, FWIW, but someone needs to actually do the legwork of designing and implementing what you're suggesting rather than just handwaving it.