Matrix is growing massively from 44.1 to 80.3 million Matrix-IDs last year. But even companies or governments who are using Matrix often don’t pay for that. Now they have huge problems to pay developers for that needed work and wrote a blog post. I wanted to share it, because many people here are interested in Matrix.
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“No money” is a bit of an interesting way to put it. Back when the Librem 5 project was taking off, New Vector appeared to be funded similarly well as we did. I don’t know since then, but they certainly didn’t feel the pandemic supply squash in the same way we did.
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That’s true. The point is, that they grew a lot last year, but their income didn’t increase. On netzpolitik.org (german webside) I read that they already had to fire developers, because they couldn’t pay for all. However, I’m not deep in that topic, just wanted to share (in my opinion) important news.
Yes, and because of this kind of issues i do not trust Services, i can not host by myself. However Matrix use Community-Servers as far as i know, even with some proprietary code. But its kind of Sad.
The run over, can be explained by a movement, flash spreading to an alternative. Mastodon grow too fast last year, but the genius behind reject money for selling his kid…
I learned today that Matrix is partially (or maybe primarily) funded by Vector (Element) selling encrypted messaging services messages to governments, including police. The protocol might still be okay in general (though thorough inspection for any backdoors is warranted) but self-hosting seems to be a must.
Edit: Someone pointed out that they are likely selling the messaging service to governments and not selling user data. I misread the post and upon rereading that, I would agree it is phrased like that correction.
Yes, we fund Matrix dev by selling encrypted messaging to governments, which includes police: if you don’t like that then please feel free to use a different app.
The real problem highlighted with your post is that governments behave so badly and companies behave so badly that what you originally interpreted the text to mean is credible.
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This is the MAIN problem with FOSS. Yep. Paying for development. Software development is harder than hardware development. Getting your software free (as in cost) IS NOT helping to develop it. Full stop.
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I was talking about Mastodon and Twitter, or X. And tried to share this behavior to Matrix/Element.
I saw in the past, Companies try to enhance Matrix for medical Chat Services and File transfer with addition authentication and validation services. So in Europe, thanks Matrix we can communicate in future via Video Chat our Doc if he likes to have a Session (after got a event for this Video consultation hour).
irvinewade, i do not think that the governments behave badly… its only companies who sell that smartphone hardware, that App-Lication Services, and mining privacy as kinky and there are no ethics.
Back to Matrix. If your Chat Partner is on a unsecure OS or unsecure hardware. Your information will leak. To others.
The post in question (mis)understood that the text said:
company selling encrypted messages to governments, including police
It takes two to tango. If it’s wrong for a company to sell, surely it is also wrong for the government to buy?
From a legal perspective, maybe not. From a legal perspective, it is possible that the law criminalises the seller but not the buyer, or vice versa. Or, more likely, criminalises neither party in this actual situation.
However by using the words “bad behaviour” I was not speaking from a legal perspective, but rather from a moral or ethical perspective - and obviously only expressing an opinion about what is “bad” and what is “credible”.
There most certainly are cases where the government buys what it cannot compel. That is, the company voluntarily sells to the government what the government could not compel the company to provide. Even where the government could compel it is sometimes smarter politics not to use the stick if you can use the carrot.
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Ars Technica/Wired recently reported that the NSA has been and wants to continue purchasing our dats. With regards to selling and purchasing data, I am in the belief that both parties are in the wrong, no matter who they are.
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I think too that booth are wrong. However from a kind of view its logical to catch all Data. However. Youth have every time a free start and its natural that they try to recharge a fresh view on everything. That’s why we have to run a Fresh new Version of ourselves question everything… its evolution.
And NSA is no fundamental instance, its like Democracy and free Will and about behavior, and rules.
I think this 99 percentage about known data and known future calculated behavior is a dead end. Needs time for evolution to accept that information loop.
I for one, just donated. Software doesn’t get developed without funding, no matter how zealous your ideals are.
XMPP is awesome, and I support its development as well. But Matrix has done a lot in a little bit of time, relatively, and this has been because of funding.
If you use Matrix, you should contribute back whatever you can, and no make excuses why you shouldn’t.
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