4 ms·

I’m confused. Synapse and Dendrite projects are forked. Ok. But then they say they won’t be continuing to fund development and “They’ll need to get their upst

by MR4D 3y ago

I’m confused. Synapse and Dendrite projects are forked. Ok. But then they say they won’t be continuing to fund development and “They’ll need to get their upstream releases from Element’s repositories going forward.” that seems to mean that future downloads should come from Element? That sounds more like a handoff than a fork. Can someone clarify this a bit?

cobertos 3y ago
They say the original repositories predate Element. But no idea on who owns them or who's being forked _from_?
- dbrgn 3y ago
  If I'm not mistaken: The two projects were started by the people that founded Element. When they founded Element, they transferred the projects to the Foundation, to make them more independent. Now, they're taking them back and relicensing them with a reciprocal license (AGPLv3 + CLA) instead of a permissive one (ALv2). I assume this is about other companies using Synapse and Dendrite without contributing back, so now Element wants to be able to sell licenses for the projects, or get contributions. See https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ for more details.
  - ensignavenger 3y ago
    The CLA isn't reciprocal. Reciprocicity is only one way when you require a CLA.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      I don't think they're saying the CLA is reciprocal, that's a reference to the AGPL which requires you to share any changes you make.
dbrgn 3y ago
From how I understand this: Synapse and Dendrite were Foundation projects, but the contributions came almost exclusively from Element. Element is forking the two projects, and is redirecting their maintenance efforts towards their own forks. This means that the Foundation versions of the projects will not receive active maintenance anymore, and the Foundation does not have the funding to invest in the development themselves. It's a de-facto handoff, unless someone wants to invest significant resources in development of the pre-fork versions of the projects.
themoonisachees 3y ago
The old repos "belong" to the matrix foundation, but the work on them was mostly done by the element team. This is them officializing that synapse and dendrite are element branded projects, not matrix (so yes, it is indeed a handoff), except they are branding this as a fork because the license is changing. They also are changing licences to require downstream forkers to also open-source their changes, ensuring corporate users of matrix contribute back upstream if they modify their implementation (beeper might be in some hot water, though they can very well continue using and maintaining their own fork from the matrix foundation repos with the old licence).
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  It requires all users, whether corporate or not, to release all changes under AGPLv3... the whole point of the Matrix protocol is to talk to other users... so basically everyone triggers the AGPLv3s "network" clause. However, releaseing your code under the AGPLv3 is not the same as upstreaming it. In order to do that, you additionaly have to sign a CLA granting the Element corporation broad and expansive rights to do whatever they please with your code... but you don't get the same rights to their code.
  - goku12 3y ago
    I agree with your assessment of the AGPL-CLA combination. But the initial part seems to be about the Matrix protocol. The projects that were forked and re-licensed are the servers - Synapse, Dendrite, Sygnal, Sydent and MAS. The protocol itself is still under Apache 2.0 (https://spec.matrix.org/latest/ https://spec.matrix.org/latest/), though they seem to have added CLA to it. If so, the protocol doesn't have the problem you pointed out. You could use another server - like Conduit.
    - progval 3y ago
      Where do you see they added a CLA to the protocol? If you are referring to the sign-off, it has always been there and isn't a CLA.
    - 3y ago

by MR4D 3y ago

cobertos 3y ago

They say the original repositories predate Element. But no idea on who owns them or who's being forked _from_?

dbrgn 3y ago
If I'm not mistaken: The two projects were started by the people that founded Element. When they founded Element, they transferred the projects to the Foundation, to make them more independent. Now, they're taking them back and relicensing them with a reciprocal license (AGPLv3 + CLA) instead of a permissive one (ALv2). I assume this is about other companies using Synapse and Dendrite without contributing back, so now Element wants to be able to sell licenses for the projects, or get contributions. See https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ for more details.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  The CLA isn't reciprocal. Reciprocicity is only one way when you require a CLA.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I don't think they're saying the CLA is reciprocal, that's a reference to the AGPL which requires you to share any changes you make.

dbrgn 3y ago

From how I understand this: Synapse and Dendrite were Foundation projects, but the contributions came almost exclusively from Element. Element is forking the two projects, and is redirecting their maintenance efforts towards their own forks. This means that the Foundation versions of the projects will not receive active maintenance anymore, and the Foundation does not have the funding to invest in the development themselves. It's a de-facto handoff, unless someone wants to invest significant resources in development of the pre-fork versions of the projects.

themoonisachees 3y ago

The old repos "belong" to the matrix foundation, but the work on them was mostly done by the element team. This is them officializing that synapse and dendrite are element branded projects, not matrix (so yes, it is indeed a handoff), except they are branding this as a fork because the license is changing. They also are changing licences to require downstream forkers to also open-source their changes, ensuring corporate users of matrix contribute back upstream if they modify their implementation (beeper might be in some hot water, though they can very well continue using and maintaining their own fork from the matrix foundation repos with the old licence).

ensignavenger 3y ago
It requires all users, whether corporate or not, to release all changes under AGPLv3... the whole point of the Matrix protocol is to talk to other users... so basically everyone triggers the AGPLv3s "network" clause. However, releaseing your code under the AGPLv3 is not the same as upstreaming it. In order to do that, you additionaly have to sign a CLA granting the Element corporation broad and expansive rights to do whatever they please with your code... but you don't get the same rights to their code.
- goku12 3y ago
  I agree with your assessment of the AGPL-CLA combination. But the initial part seems to be about the Matrix protocol. The projects that were forked and re-licensed are the servers - Synapse, Dendrite, Sygnal, Sydent and MAS. The protocol itself is still under Apache 2.0 (https://spec.matrix.org/latest/ https://spec.matrix.org/latest/), though they seem to have added CLA to it. If so, the protocol doesn't have the problem you pointed out. You could use another server - like Conduit.
  - progval 3y ago
    Where do you see they added a CLA to the protocol? If you are referring to the sign-off, it has always been there and isn't a CLA.
  - 3y ago