Michael @matrix / away in 🇯🇵 Japan until Jan, 19 says
Hi people, we (@bboett:matrix.org & @michaelmicheal:matrix.org) are doing a Stammtisch like meeting in Tokyo on 17th January 2026 @19:00 JST. We call it "Matrix Pop-up meeting Tokyo". All people around an interested to join please go to room #matrix-popup-tokyo:pwl.social
Thib announces
🔗Hackathon
We're excited that more than 50 people have signed up for our Hackathon before FOSDEM, including some seasoned developers who are willing to mentor newcomers. We're looking forward to meeting everyone there!
If your organisation wants to support the Matrix community for this event and get brand recognition for it, please reach out to events-wg@foundation.matrix.org to sponsor the prizes, lunch, dinner, or drinks!
🕐️ Friday, 30th January, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time)
🏢 HSBXL, Rue Osseghem 53, 1080 Molenbeek
🎫 Free registration here
Join us in #fosdem-2026-hackathon:matrix.org to stay informed!🔗Booth
We'll have a booth for both FOSDEM days, on Sat. 31st Jan. and Sun. 1st Feb. We already have a solid team staffing the booth, but there are a few remaining slots if you want to lend us a hand and leave FOSDEM with a limited edition volunteer T-shirt! (Little birds told me this year the T-shirts would be Spezicolored!)
Find us in building AW!
🔗Devroom
We're coordinating the Decentralised Communications Devroom. We have a pretty cool line-up with focusing on T&S, Matrix, XMPP, ActivityPub, AT and more.
Joins us to get up to speed on what's happening in the decentralised communications world, and why not help cross-pollinate between projects 🐝
🕐️ Sunday, 1st February, 09:00 - 17:00 CET (local time) 🏢 Room AW1.126
HarHarLinks says
Only 2 weeks later we are back with a quick wrapup of recent activities on the website before the holidays.
- Jack S. has been supporting us greatly in shipping a million updates to all kinds of ecosystem projects as well as finding and fixing some smaller issues and contributions.
- We cleaned up the blog categories a bit, slowly working towards clearer definition of what goes where.
- salixh5 checked the status of and contributed an update to the LINE bridge during a Matrix Stammtisch.
- anoa updated our footer social media icons to include the Foundation's Bluesky profile.
- We have updated the homepage to fulfil the platinum membership perk.
- andybalaam contributed documentation on how to hide images by default using different Matrix clients via the T&S R&D WG.
- The T&S team announced policyserv, the SCT published Matrix v1.17, and the Events WG shared the latest news about the upcoming FOSDEM 2026.
- We greatly simplified the website contribution workflow by updating the PR template and introducing more automated checks via linters. More about that is on the horizon and looking for contributors!
- The effort to tag issues we are looking for help for continues. You can already find 30 to get involved with using the help wanted tag!
The website office hour is on holidays and will return in its regular slot on 8th January! In the meantime, you can still find us in the #matrix.org-website:matrix.org room and of course keep sending PRs! See you again at TWIM next year.
As we've previously announced, we are organising a Matrix Hackathon before FOSDEM and co-organising the Decentralised Communication Devroom, and we will have a Booth. We have updates for you!
You might have seen our earlier post about the Decentralised Communication Devroom we are coordinating. This is one of the exciting ways to come talk to us, but it's not the only one!
This year we're organising a hackathon before FOSDEM, we'll have a booth during FOSDEM itself, and we're coordinating the Decentralised Communication devroom!
You can find the same video mirrored on media.ccc.de at https://media.ccc.de/v/matrix-conf-2025-75078-governing-board-transparency-update. All Conference content is available via the Conference website.
Amandine reports
We're happy to announce that LU-CIX is joining the Foundation as a Silver Member! LU-CIX is the organisation delivering the Matrix-based Luxchat in collaboration with the Ministry of Digitalisation of Luxembourg and the Chamber of Commerce. Luxchat comes in three (interoperable) flavours:
- Luxchat4Gov for the public sector
- Luxchat4Pro for companies and organisations
- Luxchat, as a free messaging system for the general public and businesses, without advertising and without use of personal data, and respects the privacy of its users.
Earlier this week the three organisations also hosted a successful Matrix meets Luxchat Hackathon in presence of Madame Obertin, Minister of Digitalisation for Luxembourg!
The Governing Board is an advisory board to the Matrix.org Foundation and with elected representatives from all across the Matrix ecosystem.
Gwmngilfen announces
Howdy folks, your friendly GB here - I've been a bit quiet recently, but we wanted to let you all know that the latest 6-monthly Board meeting happened this week! Lots to cover, Working Group updates, challenges, plans for upcoming work, and so on - so you can expect a report out in the near future on that! Stay tuned 🙂
The Matrix.org Foundation will coordinate the FOSDEM 2026 Decentralised Communication Devroom, and is requesting submissions for talks!
One of the most important roles for Free & Open Source Software right now is liberating users from being trapped and exploited by Big Tech. This is especially true of the fundamental need for humanity to communicate safely and securely, without being dependent on gatekeepers who pose a single point of control and failure.
Amandine reports
Robin is sadly moving on at the end of November, see A fond farewell from Managing Director Robin Riley. I will be covering as acting MD while we recruit someone else. A job description is incoming, but please get in touch at management@foundation.matrix.org if you're interested.
Amandine announces
This week we're welcoming Liberbyte as a Silver member of the Foundation! Liberbyte uses Matrix as data exchange layer between organisations to provide transparent and controlled access to global data exchanges and markets. Welcome and thank you for your support! 👏
Does your community or organisation use Matrix? Do you maintain an open source project that builds on Matrix? Join these organisations in demonstrating their support and apply to become a member today.
