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Is Matrix cooked?

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  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    While I understand the need for them to maintain a steady income, all I can think of is Discord’s Nitro when I think of this upcoming Premium account offering.

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    deleted by creator

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    Honestly the reply sort of burys the leade, the most damning part (as an outsider) was:

    but wasn’t going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code…

    OSS getting sacrificed first sign of financial instability isn't something I can condone.

    edit: see reply chain.

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    SimpleX Chat – Many suggested this and I will explicitly recommend against it due to the founder's positions on various topics. This includes being anti-vaxx, believing COVID-19 was a hoax, trans- and homophobia, climate denial; In the SimpleX Groupchat he's also been seen basically bootlicking trump a couple times, but I've lost receipts to that

    Unrelated to the main points I kind of always thought SimpleX seemed sketchy...

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    Matrix has always been way too bulky for being a simple messenger. Imo their architecture was cooked from the start.

  • Honestly the reply sort of burys the leade, the most damning part (as an outsider) was:

    but wasn’t going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code…

    OSS getting sacrificed first sign of financial instability isn't something I can condone.

    edit: see reply chain.

    AGPL is a full-on FOSS licence with strong copyleft requirements, not a measly open-source licence like Apache, which could be pivoted to proprietary at a moment's notice. We're communicating through an AGPL-licensed system right now as it's what Lemmy's licensed as. If they were going for a corporate-friendly licence, AGPL is the last thing they'd choose as it forces you to share source code with even more people than the regular GPL does.

  • AGPL is a full-on FOSS licence with strong copyleft requirements, not a measly open-source licence like Apache, which could be pivoted to proprietary at a moment's notice. We're communicating through an AGPL-licensed system right now as it's what Lemmy's licensed as. If they were going for a corporate-friendly licence, AGPL is the last thing they'd choose as it forces you to share source code with even more people than the regular GPL does.

    When I first read the article this was a WTF moment for me. I was reading it twice to find out how that fits in the whole picture, but it is just mentioned once... no further explanation. So I called the whole thing BS...

  • Matrix has always been way too bulky for being a simple messenger. Imo their architecture was cooked from the start.

    it's ... not ... a simple messenger, if that helps?

  • Honestly the reply sort of burys the leade, the most damning part (as an outsider) was:

    but wasn’t going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code…

    OSS getting sacrificed first sign of financial instability isn't something I can condone.

    edit: see reply chain.

    I didn't understand the original post. It seemed like someone whining about a switch to AGPL. But that switch certainly sounds like a good thing to me. I didn't know the old license was Apache but it still seems like a good switch. Redis (with a misstep in between) did something similar.

  • AGPL is a full-on FOSS licence with strong copyleft requirements, not a measly open-source licence like Apache, which could be pivoted to proprietary at a moment's notice. We're communicating through an AGPL-licensed system right now as it's what Lemmy's licensed as. If they were going for a corporate-friendly licence, AGPL is the last thing they'd choose as it forces you to share source code with even more people than the regular GPL does.

    My bad, I thought they were moving from Apache to something more restrictive / less open (the way so many have recently, to effectively "source available"), especially by their wording — which conveys to me they're frustrated they aren't "capturing" the "value" of their code.

    AGPL is not my favorite license but it has its purposes I suppose.

  • Matrix has always been way too bulky for being a simple messenger. Imo their architecture was cooked from the start.

    This. I know a lot of folks in the fediverse like Matrix, but the user experience feels like yet another platform that started with the platform architecture, and not the end user’s experience.

    Then it gets adopted by a bunch of people who enjoy installing Hannah Montana Linux distros for fun, and no one else.

  • SimpleX Chat – Many suggested this and I will explicitly recommend against it due to the founder's positions on various topics. This includes being anti-vaxx, believing COVID-19 was a hoax, trans- and homophobia, climate denial; In the SimpleX Groupchat he's also been seen basically bootlicking trump a couple times, but I've lost receipts to that

    Unrelated to the main points I kind of always thought SimpleX seemed sketchy...

    It's just software...

  • My bad, I thought they were moving from Apache to something more restrictive / less open (the way so many have recently, to effectively "source available"), especially by their wording — which conveys to me they're frustrated they aren't "capturing" the "value" of their code.

    AGPL is not my favorite license but it has its purposes I suppose.

    redacting with strikethrough is fine, and that way we all can learn

  • It's just software...

    with (write) access to everything on your computer, but even just your chats on the phone

  • with (write) access to everything on your computer, but even just your chats on the phone

    Uhhhh no?

  • Uhhhh no?

    what no? why and how am I wrong?

  • redacting with strikethrough is fine, and that way we all can learn

    Omg thanks for linking that thread. The amount of removed and deleted content on Lemmy is so frustrating. I hate the fact that removed or deleted posts also completely nuke all the comments on it.

    Reddit's approach is so much better in this respect. A removed post removed the OP's text, but if it's a link post the link remains, and all the comments remain.

  • what no? why and how am I wrong?

    Why would you think a chat app has full write access to your disk?

  • In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

    The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: https://matrix.to/#%2F!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn%3Amatrix.org%2F%24XpQe-vmtB7j0Uy1TPCvMVCSCW63Xxw_jwy3fflw7EMQ%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=element.io

    https://paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cooked is fascinatingly incorrect

    Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

    fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

    Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

    nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

    Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

    Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

    At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

    No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

    Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

    No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

    Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

    wow.

    the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

    so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

    this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.

    In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

    Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

    somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth

    I self host matrix. Should anyone who’s not on the foundation’s home server care? Do these changes affect anyone else?

  • Transparent PCBs Trigger 90s Nostalgia

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    I would hate that case.
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  • Microsoft finally bids farewell to PowerShell 2.0

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    Batch scripts run on my locked-down work laptop. Powershell requires administrator privileges that I don't have. I don't make the rules, I just evade them
  • Microsoft to Lay Off About 9,000 Employees

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    Actually you forgot about data mining or Spyware. Windows has literally become Spyware. I would switch faster than light if anticheat didn't gatekeep Linux. Edit: Microsoft products have literally become Spyware
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    This is also going to be used against the general populace. Setting up the Techno-Fuedal Surveillance state. The Militaries of the future will be policing their own countries more and more. Very soon the regular police will all have masks and blacked out helmets.
  • Using Signal groups for activism

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    You're using a messaging app that was built with the express intent of being private and encrypted. Yes. You're asking why you can't have a right to privacy when you use your real name as your display handle in order to hide your phone number. I didn't ask anything. I stated it definitively. If you then use personal details as your screen name, you can't get mad at the app for not hiding your personal details. I've already explained this. I am not mad. I am telling you why it's a bad product for activism. Chatting with your friends and clients isn't what this app is for. That's...exactly what it's for. And I don't know where you got the idea that it's not. It's absurd. Certainly Snowden never said anything of the sort. Signal themselves never said anything of the sort. There are other apps for that. Of course there are. They're varying degrees of not private, secure, or easy to use.
  • Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3 million peers

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    Yeah i suppose any form of payment that you have to keep secret for some reason is a reason to use crypto, though I struggle to imagine needing that if you're not doing something dodgy imagine you’re a YouTuber and want to accept donations: that will force you to give out your name to them, which they could use to get your address and phone number. There’s always someone that hates you, and I rather not have them knowing my personal info Wat. Crypto is not good at solving that, it's in fact much much worse than traditional payment methods. There's a reason scammers always want to be paid in crypto if you’re the seller then it’s a lot better. With the traditional banking system, with enough knowledge you can cheat both sides: stolen cards, abusive chargebacks, bank accounts in other countries under fake name/fake ID… Crypto simplifies scamming when the seller, and pretty much makes it impossible for buyers What specifically are you boycotting? Card payments, international tranfers, national transfers taking days to complete, money being seizable at all times many banks lose money on them Their plans are basically all focused on the card you get. Pretty sure they make money with it, else many wouldn’t offer cash back (selling infos and getting a fee from card payments?) if you think the people that benefit from you using crypto (crypto exchange owners and billionaires that own crypto etc.) are less evil than goverment regulated banks, you're deluded. Banks are evil anyways, does it really change anything? The difference is that it technically helps everyone using crypto, not only the rich. Plus P2P exchanges are a thing You'll spend more money using crypto for that, not less That’s just factually false. Do you know the price of a swift transfer? Now compare it to crypto tx fees, with many being under $0.01
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    The main difference being the consequences that might result from the surveillance.