[sdfghswe]

It's about power. If they DON'T open source now, with very little effort they have the option to in the future. They don't make money now, but maybe circumstances change? No one knows the future, and we don't know their plans.

But if they do open source it, then it will take a lot of hard work to revert it.

In other words, it's a company and this is their asset.

[palata]

I see your point, but Signal is out there and it does pretty much exactly what WhatsApp does.

It's just that people are too lazy to switch, because they don't care about their client being open source.

[sdfghswe]

I support your point on open source. At the same time, it has to be said that Signal doesn't to "pretty much exactly" what WhatsApp does. On my Android it's quite sluggish, whereas WhatsApp is very smooth.

[palata]

Works very well on my Android, on a not-very-powerful phone...