[2Gkashmiri]

free as in "open source" not free as in free software. you cant do squat with the software, you cant submit bug fixes or fork and roll out your own. this is for complying with license requirements.

oh, also the github repo last i heard was very far behind in commits from their internal live branches. they push to github as an afterthought

[nayuki]

You are assuming rights that free / open-source software never promised.

The company owns the code copyright, so they can choose to release any part of the code they wish; they can delay as much as they want.

You never had the right to submit bug fixes to the original project. Open source is about source code, not about having a responsive community.

[2Gkashmiri]

i am basing these "assumptions" based on what matrix offers. why is matrix the polar opposite of these "issues" then?

what benefit do you get from "centralization" of signal at the hands of moxie that you cant get from a decentralized nature of matrix which is similar to what we call today as "Email"?

sure, that is why i said "complying with open source" but at the same time not being free software. sure its not actively hostile towards users like whatsapp is but it isnt much better anyways. i m not asking for a right to submit bug fixes. the reason i am sticking to that is because they grant me that right and for me, that is a big deal. the whole concept of "free software" is about the community helping each other to build software that can solve problems, not comply with the letter of the license and sticking with that.

>The company owns the code copyright, so they can choose to release any part of the code they wish; they can delay as much as they want.

so tomorrow there is a severe flaw found in the code of the app or the server and the company can decide to wait it out and internally fix the issue after a long time without users knowing about it and then they release the fix as a normal thing, sure they have every "right" to do that but is it really fitting to what we today associate with free software community? imagine that with say the linux kernel. people would sit on zero day bugs with fixes just because they "own" the copyright.

[growse]

> i am basing these "assumptions" based on what matrix offers. why is matrix the polar opposite of these "issues" then?

Because it has different objectives?

> what benefit do you get from "centralization" of signal at the hands of moxie that you cant get from a decentralized nature of matrix which is similar to what we call today as "Email"?

If this is actually a good faith question (despite the overwhelming amount that's been written by a lot of people explaining exactly this point), I suggest you stop and think about what the answer might be. Then maybe go and read what Moxie (and others) have written setting out their values and why they chose a particular direction. You don't have to agree with it, but consider that others do.

> the whole concept of "free software" is about the community helping each other to build software that can solve problems, not comply with the letter of the license and sticking with that.

No, "Free Software" is about ensuring the end-user's freedoms (see Stallman etc.). The signal client and servers are both open source and free - if you want to take apart, modify and run your own instances of them, you're free to do so. The restrictions that Signal likes to impose is about connecting to their instance of a service. This has nothing to do with Free Software.

> so tomorrow there is a severe flaw found in the code of the app or the server and the company can decide to wait it out and internally fix the issue after a long time without users knowing about it and then they release the fix as a normal thing, sure they have every "right" to do that but is it really fitting to what we today associate with free software community? imagine that with say the linux kernel. people would sit on zero day bugs with fixes just because they "own" the copyright.

This is literally how modern software development works for most large projects. Open source doesn't grant you the right to view every single commit that eventually makes it into the tree at the point that it is created.

[growse]

What stops you forking and running your own server? Plenty of people have done that.

[kitkat_new]

can you drop a few links to such Signal servers?

[growse]

Not public ones, no.