One thing that bothers me is why #Matrix didn't send their own standard to standards bodies such as #IETF, #W3C and such like. Also, the fact that their “flagship” client, #Riot / #Element Desktop, is actually not #FreeSoftware worries me (see https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Riot.im and https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Review:Riot.im-REV-ID-1 ).

Having a third party standards body slows things down, so they went for their own process (based on a non-profit org), which is still rather inclusive.

About Element being non-free: that's not quite true. All versions work with just free software, the only times when non-free software is used as a dependency it's because of platform restrictions forcing it (1/2)

well, I'm not the only one that evaluated the #Riot / #Element project. You can of course ask the directory for another review provided there is justification.