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> There are explanations about their stances regarding F-Droid etc. if you're willing to look for them. Source(s): Dude trust me. > These issues are orthogona

> There are explanations about their stances regarding F-Droid etc. if you're willing to look for them. Source(s): Dude trust me. > These issues are orthogonal. They are distinct issues, but not orthogonal. It wouldn't matter how Signal decided to run their "rather closed" open source software project if they allowed other people's forks to connect to their centralised network. By not allowing that, they have "weaponised" the "rather closed" development model against their own users, and, as a result, invalidated these bold claims made about why centralised networks are better. The benefit of Free Software is that it allows everyone (rather than a self-selected few) to add and remove features as they choose, and let users choose which fork they support. That creates a selective pressure towards genuine (user-centric) innovation, rather than changes that are declared to be innovation by fiat (excuse the pun). It also prevents the sort of stagnation (and potentially security problems) we saw when Internet Explorer had a 90% browser market share. There are very clear links between centralisation of design/control and a culture of closed source software development (with a non-transparent "we know better" attitude).

tptacek 5y ago
It would matter a great deal if Signal allowed other people's forks to connect to their network, because they would lose the ability to deploy new privacy features. The whole point of Signal is that it consistently makes tradeoffs in favor of privacy and against UX. An "open" Signal network would immediately be dominated by clients making the opposite tradeoff, because users value good UX far more than they value privacy. This is pretty obvious, so much so that I'm immediately suspicious of people who believe it's some nefarious plot. You don't have to agree with it, and many people don't, but if you say you don't trust their intentions (with respect to this one issue), you're saying more about yourself than about Signal.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > they would lose the ability to deploy new privacy features I disagree, in the sense that they could still produce their own client which had those new features (and use feature-detection to remain compatible with forks that support them), but you seem to be making a more subtle argument about market forces and group dynamics, which I want to understand better. What sort of tradeoffs do you think competing clients would make? I can't think of any way that weakening the privacy could improve the UX enough to make people want to abandon the official client (although I could see people abandoning the official client for a fork which doesn't include the crypto-coin, and all of its attack surface). The only example I can think of (trying to steelman your position as much as possible) is that other clients would remove the requirement for providing a phone number, and this would make it harder to do key verification somehow (and thus it would happen less often). I can't quite make that argument work, and I still think that not providing Signal with a phone number is a choice that users should be allowed to make based on their own assessment of the risks. Ultimately, though, Signal closing their network cannot make users safer, since their network isn't the only way to communicate. Users who don't like the UX (or unwanted features) of their client are free to install WhatsApp instead, or just use SMS, so I really don't accept the argument that restricting free software development leads to better privacy over all.

tptacek 5y ago

It would matter a great deal if Signal allowed other people's forks to connect to their network, because they would lose the ability to deploy new privacy features. The whole point of Signal is that it consistently makes tradeoffs in favor of privacy and against UX. An "open" Signal network would immediately be dominated by clients making the opposite tradeoff, because users value good UX far more than they value privacy. This is pretty obvious, so much so that I'm immediately suspicious of people who believe it's some nefarious plot. You don't have to agree with it, and many people don't, but if you say you don't trust their intentions (with respect to this one issue), you're saying more about yourself than about Signal.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> they would lose the ability to deploy new privacy features I disagree, in the sense that they could still produce their own client which had those new features (and use feature-detection to remain compatible with forks that support them), but you seem to be making a more subtle argument about market forces and group dynamics, which I want to understand better. What sort of tradeoffs do you think competing clients would make? I can't think of any way that weakening the privacy could improve the UX enough to make people want to abandon the official client (although I could see people abandoning the official client for a fork which doesn't include the crypto-coin, and all of its attack surface). The only example I can think of (trying to steelman your position as much as possible) is that other clients would remove the requirement for providing a phone number, and this would make it harder to do key verification somehow (and thus it would happen less often). I can't quite make that argument work, and I still think that not providing Signal with a phone number is a choice that users should be allowed to make based on their own assessment of the risks. Ultimately, though, Signal closing their network cannot make users safer, since their network isn't the only way to communicate. Users who don't like the UX (or unwanted features) of their client are free to install WhatsApp instead, or just use SMS, so I really don't accept the argument that restricting free software development leads to better privacy over all.