If that's true, it sounds terrible, and a reason enough to not consider it at all. So much of the work in bug organizations is about just searching for past conversations when a similar issue had been discussed... Search must be flawless.
Then you should use proprietary solutions. Open source solutions are written by developers for themselves. They are not writing it for you. They have no reason to write them for you. You are not paying them. It is a labor of love they are doing for themselves.
Yet as a bonus they are offering it to you for free as a gift with the hope that if it doesn't work for you, you can improve it or hire someone you can.
If you only care about consuming open source but not contributing, by all means you should buy proprietary solutions.
This is a subthread of "I wonder why matrix isn't more widespread at this point". When people reply why it doesn't work for them, that's not time for "you didn't say thank you".
> "They are not writing it for you."
From matrix.org[1]: 'The values we follow are: Accessibility rather than elitism. Empathy rather than contrariness.' ... 'act as a neutral custodian for Matrix ... for the greater benefit of the whole ecosystem, not benefiting or privileging any single player or subset of players. For clarity: the Matrix ecosystem is defined as anyone who uses the Matrix protocol. This includes (non-exhaustively): End-users of Matrix clients. Anyone using Matrix for data communications'
> "They have no reason to write them for you."
How are Matrix/Element going to get anywhere with their mission to replace proprietary chat networks if they don't write their new one for millions of ordinary people to be willing to use?
> This is a subthread of "I wonder why matrix isn't more widespread at this point".
Exactly. My point is that the question itself is misplaced. It reflects a consumer mindset, which makes sense when you are paying for a product, but feels out of place with open source projects built largely through voluntary effort.
However noble the foundation's mission sounds, the reality is that Matrix is a complex protocol sustained by people investing their time and energy because they care about it.
It will not magically solve every user problem. If something does not work for you, the constructive path is to help fix it or at least propose concrete improvements. Otherwise, choosing a proprietary solution is perfectly reasonable but expecting open source projects to behave like consumer products is out of place.
Yes, it is not popular, for the reasons I already mentioned.
What puzzles me is why so many HN comments, including yours, frame this purely in consumer terms: "If this open source tool doesn't meet my needs, I'll switch to a proprietary one."
And that is perfectly fine. Use whatever works for you. No issue there.
What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Matrix already serves its developers and contributors. If it does not serve you, you can either help improve it or choose a proprietary alternative. Both are reasonable paths.
What feels off is the dismissive tone suggesting that if Matrix is not widely adopted, something must be wrong and proprietary options are therefore superior. In reality, this is just how open source works: projects exist to serve those who build and support them, not necessarily the mass market.
There is nothing wrong with an open source project not meeting everyone's needs, leading some people to choose proprietary alternatives. Remarks like "This is the fastest way to get people to say: I hate proprietary solutions but at least they work" or "OK great. I guess you answered why Matrix is not more popular" are not really the decisive critique you think they are.
Open source and proprietary software each have legitimate roles. For some use cases and users, open source tools are a better fit. For others, proprietary solutions make more sense. Popularity alone is not a meaningful measure of value and choosing what works best for you is entirely reasonable either way.
> What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Partly it's the wish and need for particular project to succeed. They use/like it and want their friends to do so, but then getting brought down by the reality. And communication software is all about critical mass..
Also the promises given and then seeing them not delivered. Everyone can't be builders..
Just to be clear, have been using Matrix from around 2015 with friends and family. Keeper of souls..
> What seems misplaced is the expectation that Matrix must be popular. Why should it be? It is not your project, and you are not contributing to it. Where does this expectation of its popularity come from?
Brother, what even are you talking about? Have you read their missiom statement? They specifically say they want to maximize the number of users and maximize the number of self hosted networks.
You saying they don't want to be popular is, with all due respect, completely from your ass. Matrix and Elements mission statement has them declaring they want to be as popular as possible.
Yes, I read that and directly addressed that in my reply to @jodrellblank above. Repeating it here:
"However noble the foundation's mission sounds, the reality is that Matrix is a complex protocol sustained by people investing their time and energy because they care about it. It will not magically solve every user problem."
> You saying they don't want to be popular is, with all due respect, completely from your ass.
Perhaps you should read my messages more carefully. Try to read to understand instead of reading to respond. Not even once I mentioned anywhere that they don't want to be popular. I said that they aren't popular coz of $REASONS. I said they cannot be popular without help. Are you helping them? I help them by sending small fixes to issues that annoy me. I am trying in my own way to make it a little better. How about you? Are you here only to complain or are you doing anything to help them become a little more popular?
This is not a commercial product, you know. It is an open source project developed and improved by volunteers like you and me. Yes, there is a foundation and there is a mission but that mission will not become magically true without help from people like you and me.
If you don't want to help that's alright. You can use proprietary software where the devs will give you the software you want in exchange for money. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want Matrix to be more popular, people like us have to make it popular by contributing to it.
Meh, already got enough in my plate. That "do it yourself if you need it" is technically correct for FOSS, but only when people need it, not the case here until it gets so popular that the whole organization decides to use it ;-)
There is no need to get into an online argument with the developers. The open source software is still offered to you as a gift. You can modify it however you need and keep it for yourself.
The developers developed the open source software for themselves. Doesn't work for you? Too bad. But they are not going to develop it for you. Definitely not, when you are not paying them.
If it doesn't work for you, you shouldn't think, "Oh, I need to get into an online argument with the developers." Here's what you do.
1. Develop the fix/feature you need for yourself. If you cannot do it yourself, hire someone who can.
2. Send a pull request to the developers. But don't expect them to merge it. Remember they developed their stuff for themselves. You developed your stuff for yourself. If they merge, great. If they don't merge, you've still got your stuff for yourself.
3. If they don't merge your stuff, you could maintain a fork. Yes, it's a pain to keep your fork updated but you need to do your own work. Nobody else will do your work for you.
If all this is too difficult for you, why even consider open source? Just use proprietary software.
I truly don't understand the self-entitled HN comments that think for some strange reason that someone else should give you a software for free and then do all the work for you.
No, I don’t. It doesn’t apply here because the comment you responded to is written in such a sarcastic manner that you have to be willfully obtuse to miss it.
Did you even read the link I gave you? It already addresses exactly the scenario you mention. That no matter how obviously sarcastic the comment is, it can still be seen as a sincere comment. Please re-read it.
But TBH in this case I couldn't tell whether the parent comment was sincere or sarcastic. But that's not the point. Poe's law applies even when the comment is obviously sarcastic.
Question about the license choice: now that we're past so many projects that started up as FOSS but with a longer-term plan of monetization and/or corporate-tier support level, which saw their choice of license allowing other bigger players to just get the code and run a competing service with proprietary extensions (which is what something so exceedingly open as MIT allows), isn't there any worry that this could happen again here?
I'm curious if AGPL shouldn't be more common (even though it's not a silver bullet), but MIT projects with foreseeable needs of some monetization to survive long term never ceased to show up, despite so many FOSS drama in the last couple years.
Great question and I think about this a lot. I chose MIT deliberately and I'll explain why.
My graduate research focused on common computer security misconceptions — one of the biggest being that open source is inherently insecure. The algorithms and systems we trust most are the ones open to public scrutiny. AES was selected through an open competition where every candidate was published for the world to attack. TLS, SHA-256, RSA — their security comes from transparency, not obscurity. I believe the same applies to software infrastructure.
Could a bigger player take this and run a competing service? Sure, MIT allows that. But I'd rather have the code out there being used, audited, and improved than restrict it to protect a business model I don't even have yet. If someone like AWS wraps this in a managed service, that honestly means I built something worth wrapping — and the open version still exists for anyone who wants to self-host.
I've thought about the Canonical model — paid support around a free product — and I might go there someday. But I don't have years of production use behind this yet. We all start somewhere. Right now I'd rather focus on making the software good and building a community around it than optimizing a license for a monetization strategy that doesn't exist.
AGPL is a valid choice and I respect projects that use it. But for me, MIT is a statement about what I actually care about — the code being out there for everyone.
Yours is truly an informed and well thought out decision! I appreciate it, and enjoyed reading your reasoning; thanks for the clarity and props for the whole effort of this project!
I agree that an extreme of the permisiveness is indeed the most likely to attract major usage. On the other hand, its freedom is more fragile. All is well with each project striking the preferred balance in that axis.
I find it a bit ridiculous to see that people or whole teams don't want to use JJ (or any tool, for that matter) because in essence they hired a "support intern" (read: AI assistant) who doesn't know or want to use it.
This is meant just for computers, right? A quick check of the readme showed that devices must run this or that commands, which seems difficult to do on an smartphone. I guess the ngrok-like setup would be the way to go for that case, given the increasing prevalence of phones and tablets as the single form of computing for lots of people
I've been thinking a lot about this case specifically. And you are right, phones are largely not supported right now - I've been researching how to make that happen. One case I've found that works for me currently is running connet via Termux - and I've made the necessary changes to support that.
Native iOS/Android clients, if possible, will probably be the next things I'll work on. At minimum they should enable you to run a "source" (e.g. a consumer of an exposed service), but ideally it will be the whole deal.
Growth at any cost. Once growth is unable to increase the wealth of the shareholders the money has to be diverted from elsewhere, via cuts. Money gotta keep flowing upwards.
But the second was always the case, windows and everything else is getting shittier so fast it would require a prompt explanation if we didn't have one.
I'd like to take the opportunity to mention a tiny very useful app that allows opening a WhatsApp chat directly with any number, without having to register it first as a contact. Great for vacations or similar situations where a quick one-time chat is needed with somebody:
Ah, this is handy, as Europe (even more than the UK somehow) seems to love engaging in customer service via WhatsApp. On the continent I end up having to use it to manage bookings for Hotels and restaurants. I removed my profile picture because of this.
In fact that's simply what the app does. It's just a handy way to have it on the phone as a shortcut and not having to remember the details of how to do it. Although with the sibling comments about Whatsapp itself allowing to do all this, the helper app seems less useful now.
Correction, in case you're interested: Whatsapp does (and has always done) allow local file backups. I know because they are just there on the storage:
Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Backups/
I also know because for many years I was VERY cloud-averse so for several iterations of smartphone purchases I did migrate my chat backups between phones (plain copy-paste of files with a computer) without issues.
To add a datapoint I can share mine: it's me who would be in a position to bootstrap the change in my circles, but I wouldn't use or recommend Signal as Whatsapp replacement until the core features are on parity, including history backups, which have always been a lagging userstory for Signal.
I think they have different (and somewhat opposing, even) targets, Signal wants to be extremely privacy protecting, and it's a disservice to their goals to sell them as a replacement for WhatsApp, because they're not.
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