4 ms·

Signal is open source. Are you thinking of Telegram?

erichocean 7y ago
Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but IIRC their protocol is proprietary—even though the code is open source. So it was more like "you can read the source, but can't do anything new or different with it."
- jethro_tell 7y ago
  It may be the server code that is or was unavailable. The app has always been open.
  - 0xdeadb00f 7y ago
    Server code is available, but you can't run your own server and communicate with the rest of the Signal users. (Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks).
    - jraph 7y ago
      If I understood correctly, the Signal protocol can be federated (and actually, I just learned that Signal was federated in the past with servers managed by Cyanogenmod between 2013 and 2016), but Moxie does not believe federation is a good thing for Signal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federati...
    - maksim-m 7y ago
      > Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks Moxie has a blog post explaining why Signal won't support federalization: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ "After three weeks, sealed sender now represents over 80% of overall Signal messaging traffic." https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 This would be impossible to achieve with federated protocol.
- noodlesUK 7y ago
  What you’re probably remembering is the fight between them and forks about interoperability. Forked versions aren’t allowed to use the signal servers (and therefore talk to other users). This is in contrast to federated protocols such as matrix, where there’s space for many clients.
  - usrnm 7y ago
    Telegeram allows third-party clients, there are quite a few of them, actually
  - lsiebert 7y ago
    what is matrix? Other than a pretty great action movie, I mean.
    - pseudalopex 7y ago
      https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
- jraph 7y ago
  Signal is free software. However, there are two problems with Signal that may make it less worth it for free software enthusiasts: - Signal for Android is built with Google proprietary libraries (Firebase). Signal binaries therefore contain non-free parts. - Moxie does not want to see non-official clients connect to the official servers of Signal, including forks that only get rid of the Google part. Understandable but annoying. LibreSignal was doing that, and was stopped for this reason. I would add something else that bothers me, and it's the requirement to tie one's account to a phone number (and the inability to run Signal on several phones I guess). Moreover, one can avoid smartphones (to avoid binary blobs that come with every smartphone of today on which Signal is supported for instance) with a little bit of hacking with signal-cli, but this is not straightforward and the Signal desktop application is limited. By encouraging the use of Signal, you are basically making people depend on smartphones. Not good as far as I am concerned, but still far better than WhatsApp and you can, if you really want to, compile the Android application yourself by removing proprietary dependencies. I did it recently, it's a few hours of work, it seems to work and it's supposed to, but I don't actually use it so don't take my word for it. So, with Signal, it is: - give your phone number - run proprietary software (and the developers highly recommend Google Play on Android), or edit, compile the app for yourself and manage your own updates (and live with your phone's binary blobs anyway), or accept to only use the limited desktop client. In any case you need a phone. So close to a very good solution…
usrnm 7y ago
Telegram clients are also open source. Unfortunately, not the server, though.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The Telegram clients aren't really developed in a way that I'd call "open source". The code they publish (if at all) is quite distinct from what they actually distribute.

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but IIRC their protocol is proprietary—even though the code is open source. So it was more like "you can read the source, but can't do anything new or different with it."

jethro_tell 7y ago
It may be the server code that is or was unavailable. The app has always been open.
- 0xdeadb00f 7y ago
  Server code is available, but you can't run your own server and communicate with the rest of the Signal users. (Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks).
  - jraph 7y ago
    If I understood correctly, the Signal protocol can be federated (and actually, I just learned that Signal was federated in the past with servers managed by Cyanogenmod between 2013 and 2016), but Moxie does not believe federation is a good thing for Signal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federati...
  - maksim-m 7y ago
    > Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks Moxie has a blog post explaining why Signal won't support federalization: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ "After three weeks, sealed sender now represents over 80% of overall Signal messaging traffic." https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 This would be impossible to achieve with federated protocol.
noodlesUK 7y ago
What you’re probably remembering is the fight between them and forks about interoperability. Forked versions aren’t allowed to use the signal servers (and therefore talk to other users). This is in contrast to federated protocols such as matrix, where there’s space for many clients.
- usrnm 7y ago
  Telegeram allows third-party clients, there are quite a few of them, actually
- lsiebert 7y ago
  what is matrix? Other than a pretty great action movie, I mean.
  - pseudalopex 7y ago
    https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/
jraph 7y ago
Signal is free software. However, there are two problems with Signal that may make it less worth it for free software enthusiasts: - Signal for Android is built with Google proprietary libraries (Firebase). Signal binaries therefore contain non-free parts. - Moxie does not want to see non-official clients connect to the official servers of Signal, including forks that only get rid of the Google part. Understandable but annoying. LibreSignal was doing that, and was stopped for this reason. I would add something else that bothers me, and it's the requirement to tie one's account to a phone number (and the inability to run Signal on several phones I guess). Moreover, one can avoid smartphones (to avoid binary blobs that come with every smartphone of today on which Signal is supported for instance) with a little bit of hacking with signal-cli, but this is not straightforward and the Signal desktop application is limited. By encouraging the use of Signal, you are basically making people depend on smartphones. Not good as far as I am concerned, but still far better than WhatsApp and you can, if you really want to, compile the Android application yourself by removing proprietary dependencies. I did it recently, it's a few hours of work, it seems to work and it's supposed to, but I don't actually use it so don't take my word for it. So, with Signal, it is: - give your phone number - run proprietary software (and the developers highly recommend Google Play on Android), or edit, compile the app for yourself and manage your own updates (and live with your phone's binary blobs anyway), or accept to only use the limited desktop client. In any case you need a phone. So close to a very good solution…

usrnm 7y ago

Telegram clients are also open source. Unfortunately, not the server, though.

saagarjha 7y ago
The Telegram clients aren't really developed in a way that I'd call "open source". The code they publish (if at all) is quite distinct from what they actually distribute.