Agreed, they could disclose a conflict of interest. But I don't think it matters here, because their request could reasonably have been brought up by someone un

Agreed, they could disclose a conflict of interest. But I don't think it matters here, because their request could reasonably have been brought up by someone unaffiliated with Signal. In other words - you don't need to be affiliated with Signal to be in favor of open sourcing the server-side code. It's a fairly common complaint on HN, and I can see why it was the top comment for a while even if I don't ultimately agree with the need to open source the code. Likewise, if you look at the link to the GitHub issue you can see many other people likewise asking for - or reacting to responses to - open source the server code. Do all those people have conflicts of interest? Is it possible that the affiliation with Signal doesn't matter here? Then be charitable, and let your actual reason for not fulfilling the request stand on its own.