Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Add a section about why this is important
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
andybalaam committed Dec 17, 2024
1 parent 3ed51ec commit b44397b
Showing 1 changed file with 24 additions and 1 deletion.
25 changes: 24 additions & 1 deletion proposals/4161-crypto-terminology.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -21,7 +21,30 @@ initiative is referred to as "Invisible Cryptography" and is tracked as:
Including device keys with Olm-encrypted events, and
* MSC4161 - this document

## Goals
## Why is this important?

Use of common terminology should help further these goals:

* **to reduce confusion**: many members of the community are confused by the
crypto features in Matrix clients, and the profusion of different words for
the same thing makes it much worse. By reducing the *number* of words, and
carefully choosing *good* words, we hope to develop a common language which
makes Matrix easier to understand, and easier to explain.

* **to ease migration**: one of the key features of Matrix for end-users is the
choice of clients, meaning no-one is locked in to a particular piece of
software. If each client uses conflicting terminology, it becomes much more
difficult to move to a different client, which works against the user's
ability to migrate.

This proposal uses "SHOULD" language rather than "MUST", because there are many
good reasons why a particular client might choose different wording. In
particular, different clients may have very different audiences who communicate
in different ways and understand different metaphors. This proposal hopes to
nudge client developers towards consistency, but never at the cost of their
unique relationship with their users.

## Outcomes

We hope that Matrix client developers will like the terms and wording we
provide, and adapt their user interfaces and documentation to use them. (If this
Expand Down

0 comments on commit b44397b

Please sign in to comment.