Second biggest mistake next to them working for law enforcement.

Today I learned that VC funded companies are not allowed to invest in open source projects. Matrix would be nowhere near its current state if it wasn’t thanks to Element. It’s not the best, but it’s far from “cooked”.

This seems a bit of an odd take. Matrix.org making their server freemium is up to them - charging some users to use the service (not the software) is a way of keeping the lights on. Better that than ads or selling user data. Lots of privacy focused orgs do the same - Proton, Tuta, Mailbox, Mullvad, IVPN. If people also have an issue with Element - don't use Element, use one of the other apps.

If people are this upset, its not impossible (or even that hard) to migrate to a different server - or host your own.

Yeah they have the rights to do it, doesn't mean it's a good thing to do, doesn't mean it won't negatively impact the future of the project.

Redis had the rights to change the license of redis, look at where that led them.

Eh, as long as they don't fuck with the protocol I don't really care. NGL. The community can always maintain a list of instances to defederate from. That can also include matrix.org

fucking with the protocol is what they do the most

So if FBI has an internal Lemmy instance we should start boycotting Lemmy?

Yeah they have the rights to do it, doesn't mean it's a good thing to do, doesn't mean it won't negatively impact the future of the project.

Redis had the rights to change the license of redis, look at where that led them.

I think the problem is that the Matrix Foundation (non-profit org) is being slowly cannibalized by Element (for-profit, VC-funded) which ends up making their costs and profit expectations a lot higher.

Right now this is only impacting the matrix.org homeserver. However, this could eventually end up impacting protocol-level design choices that harm other instances as well. Sure, you could fork the protocol and clients, but now we're talking about taking up the work that an entire organization had previously been doing. Not impossible if an existing organization like the FSF or Linux Foundation started backing something, but not a great place to be in either.

Edit: grammar