[marco1]

Here's their stance on federation: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

[problems]

They're pretty critical of XMPP but aren't there direct counter examples to it, like Conversations https://conversations.im for one.

[anc84]

Conversations is the only counter example and only came into the scene fairly recently. Before, XMPP on Android (my OS) was not fun and battery draining.

[a3_nm]

Fortunately, as the code is under a free license, F-Droid or anyone else can ship their own builds no matter what Open Whisper Systems prefer.

[gjjrfcbugxbhf]

But their users won't be able to talk to signal users. It is hard enough trying to persuade people to use signal. Getting critical mass for a fork would be even more difficult.

[marco1]

But there's a catch: They may not name it "Signal", probably.

[whodknee]

Firefox does the same thing, and I can see the reasoning behind it.