15 ms·

Financial situation of the Matrix.org Foundation

129 points by alohapersona3 3y ago

dang 3y ago
"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... (Submitted title was "Non-profit Matrix.org Foundation seems to be moving funds to for-profit Element")
- jMyles 3y ago
  The issue is several years old, but the comments that are new - and of interest - are those that assert the statement int he submitted title. Without taking a position on the underlying issue (I'm broadly pro-matrix), I wonder: is it worth considering whether this is a scenario worth an addition carve-out of the "original title" rule?
  - dang 3y ago
    Possibly - but then if the story is significant there will surely be an article or post or report about it someplace that can be linked to. I agree that none of those rules are 100% crisp and there's room for smudginess.
COGlory 3y ago
OK? What do we expect them to do with the money, exactly? As a donor, I would expect they fund the development of Matrix, which I believe Element is doing?
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  Thank you for being a donor! Naturally, you can expect us to eventually publish an annual report that details revenue, expenses, and programmatic activities. At a high level, the payments to Element includes administrative services (accounting, legal, etc), operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. In terms of funding development, the Foundation's focus has mostly been on building open source trust and safety tooling since that is a gap that others haven't addressed.
- zamalek 3y ago
  EMS (New Vector Ltd.) is not the same thing as Element. It is the first-party SAAS offering of Element/Matrix. It would be like Terraform accepting donations, and paying Hashicorp. That being said, it's completely plausible that this is salary for development time. Being tight-lipped about it is suspicious though.
- alohapersona3 3y ago
  Luckily, it doesn't matter what individuals expect. There is written documentation on what the foundation is supposed to do or not to do: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/main/proposals/1779-open-governance.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mai... Notably, "Code Core Team members must arrange their own funding for their time", which I understand as such that the Foundation does not pay directly the developers (same as other standards organizations like IETF). That said, if it was decided that developers get paid by Matrix.org Foundation for developing Matrix.org clients and servers, I wonder how this process works, given that I highly doubt that developers of Conduit, Fractal or Quaternion received any of the funds of Matrix.org foundation. Main tasks of Matrix.org Foundation is maintaining the spec, documentation, owning IP, promotion and the matrix.org home server. The home server is "generously hosted" by UpCloud (i.e. is not using New Vector EMS), at least according to the matrix.org website. Looking again at MSC1779, I noticed it says that one function of The Matrix.org Foundation is "Owns the copyright of the reference implementations of Matrix (i.e. everything in https://github.com/matrix-org https://github.com/matrix-org). By assigning copyright to the Foundation, it’s protected against New Vector ever being tempted to relicense it." That protection apparently wasn't very effective, but also notably, New Vector and their leadership clearly have shown to not stand behind the goals of the Foundation. As the leadership of New Vector is also part of the leadership of the Foundation, I see some huge potential for COI here.
jMyles 3y ago
Nothing jumps out that immediately causes me consternation as either an occasional donor or an (even more) occasional user, except perhaps the extreme delays in responses from foundation leadership. I broadly like matrix best of the chat/comms frameworks, but I keep turning back to signal, telegram, and whatsapp because of network effects. So, if shifting some personal efforts to the for-profit org makes sense to core devs... I can't really fault them. Cheers to alohapersona for keeping the fire going on this issue.
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  Hi there! Managing Director of the Foundation here. First, yes, the response times have not been great, though of course that's all been on the basis of volunteerism. Now that there's a full-time staffer you should expect better response times. Regarding the payments to Element: those are based on the many services for which we still rely on Element. The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services, operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. More details and context in my official reply: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
psYchotic 3y ago
I have nothing interesting to contribute here, but I want to express my thanks to alohapersona3 for trying to hold the Matrix Foundation accountable!
Laaas 3y ago
I assume they're paying for a service, probably developing Matrix? I would rather have them use the small amount of money they have on developing Matrix rather than explaining where each coin went. This comment seems relevant: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1407653952 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services (accounting, legal, etc), operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. For the most part, the Foundation hasn't directed much funding to active development as other folks in the ecosystem have been doing that ably. That isn't to say we don't fund development though – most recently we've been investing in developing open source trust and safety tools.
- makomk 3y ago
  This reply about how in reality there's very little benefit to the community from the copyright being assigned to the foundation is a lot more perceptive than that comment, especially now that exactly what it foresaw has come to pass: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1407743790 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
  - Laaas 3y ago
    What do you mean it has come to pass?
    - makomk 3y ago
      The server-side Matrix code developed by Element is no longer going to be released under the Apache 2 license. It's going to be dual-licensed AGPL/proprietary from now on and released from Element's own GitHub repositories with a CLA requiring copyright assignment to Element so they can use it in the proprietary version, and the foundation is dropping all development on the Apache 2 version since they're not interested in competing with Element. This was specifically to obstruct other companies from providing Matrix-based enterprise offerings. There was an announcement about it which made it onto HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275
joshsimmons 3y ago
Thanks for the tag on the GitHub issue and for being a persistent advocate for transparency. Transparency is something we should expect from any open source foundation, and I am committed to delivering on that as the Foundation's first Managing Director. That said, it is the weekend :-) I'm happy to address all of the concerns and questions, and you'll hear more from me tomorrow – both here and on GitHub.
- ajdude 3y ago
  I'm very curious to see this point addressed: > According to the statement, the book value of cryptocurrency assets did not change between Oct 31, 2021 and Oct 31, 2022. This is questionable, to say it mild, given that there have been incoming cryptocurrency transactions publicly visible on the respective published blockchain addresses of The Matrix.org Foundation. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1672874902 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
  - joshsimmons 3y ago
    Yeah, that was surely an error. The value most definitely would have changed.
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  I've published my official response over on GitHub, where I provide context and answer the specific questions the OP has asked: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco... I'm copying the first part of my response here for y'all's convenience: Hi @alohapersona, I’ve included answers to your specific questions below, but first I wanted to share some context. You can expect the Matrix.org Foundation to grow and evolve like other open source foundations, in terms of incrementally staffing up, increasing transparency and community governance, and establishing programs that support the ecosystem. There are a lot of great examples we can learn from, though the manner in which we are starting adds some complexity. It’s a lot cleaner to start with a small balance and some IP than to inherit massive pre-existing commitments like running the matrix.org homeserver. The added complexity also makes things more difficult, and it’s fair to say the path to now has reflected that difficulty level. The Foundation hit a key milestone this year when it delivered on its promise to make its first hire. If you look at the landscape and the history, you’ll find that the first hire makes a radical difference in delivering on the kinds of things I see you’ve been seeking for the last four years. Setting expectations So, I’d like to set some expectations. The Foundation’s fiscal year, as you know by now, runs from November 1 to October 31, and it takes time to close the books. Especially when we’re still separating out our infrastructure and relying on people for whom the Foundation isn’t their first priority. After we close our books, two things happen: we send them off to the tax accountants, and I begin preparing our annual report. That annual report will cover revenue, expenses, and programmatic activity, all contextualized with our vision and where we are on the path to realizing our vision. The timeline is a little fuzzy, but I’d expect that annual report to land around March or April. And we should expect further maturation/normalization of process each successive year: when we seat our first elected Governing Board in 2024 Q2, I’ll finally have a board of community representatives to review and approve my budget! With that, we’ll start to see both a public budget before each financial year begins, and an annual report after it ends. Getting involved Ultimately, the project is to build this Foundation up into an independent, transparent, self-sustaining organization with community-driven governance at every layer. We will need continued mutual accountability to stay the course on the way to achieving that vision. To wit, I welcome call-ins and incisive questions, and also stress the need to be charitable with each other. This work is hard, it is painfully incremental, and it happens over the scale of years and decades. I do not, however, welcome escalation to Hacker News with bad faith editorializing, which brings out the worst in people and leaves me wasting time confronting FUD rather than tending to forward-looking work that truly serves the community. Starting fires like that isn’t helpful. For those who are invested in Matrix and want greater visibility into the Foundation’s activities, I invite you to join the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room I launched last month. We have a lovely community of people there who provide input, offer accountability, and join together to celebrate even the small successes on our collective journey to organizational maturity and self-governance. I hope this helps you and all those who read this to understand where we are, where we are going, why things are the way they are, and how to get involved. With gratitude, Josh Simmons Managing Director of the Matrix.org Foundation ad astra per aspera
joemazerino 3y ago
The owing balance of Vector is concerning because the loan's payment, interest or default has to be marked in the books. People think running a non profit is easier but its much more difficult considering external, anonymous stakeholders.
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  Hi there! I'm the Managing Director of the Foundation. That owing balance is down to the many services for which we rely on Element. The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services, operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. More details and context in my official reply: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco... Happy to address any other concerns or questions you may have.
Zetobal 3y ago
I am following the thread for years now and their financials were always a shitshow. I believe they never released anything on time or without the community begging for it. Well, except some fluff blog post at the end of the year without real data. I love Matrix but it's a fishy foundation. With this and Element not releasing server code under apache 2 anymore, it looks more and more like Element is going for entshitification. Edit: Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round. sic
- lolinder 3y ago
  > Edit: Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round. This is more of a meta-comment, but responding to a reply by editing your comment isn't fair play. It retroactively colors their response, and if they want to reply to your edit then the whole thread becomes a mess to follow for anyone else. Let Josh have his say and reply to him if you think his response is deflection, but please don't preempt him with a sarcastic edit.
  - vilunov 3y ago
    That edit was here before that comment received any replies, so this is not a response by edit.
- vilunov 3y ago
  > Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round This has been my experience with how Matrix handles critique in general, e.g. the response to "why not matrix?" which left me disappointed. Looking at this, and also at low quality of the reference clients and servers, over-engineered protocols and the poor UX in general it does not convince me that Matrix is a good solution to consider.
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    Why not Matrix? Here's one reason: it has incredibly hard-to-debug edge cases, and plenty of bugs. One of my favourites is the one where people are kicked out of your room at random, which was reported a year ago[0]. It wasn't fixed, however, because the head of the Matrix foundation (Matthew) didn't seem to like the issue being posted on Twitter. The reporter took down the tweet, and it's still now effectively abandoned (despite it still being an issue; I've spoken to quite a few mods about it). This is honestly really disappointing behaviour from a platform owner. [0]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481
Hydraulix989 3y ago
[flagged]

129 points by alohapersona3 3y ago

dang 3y ago

"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... (Submitted title was "Non-profit Matrix.org Foundation seems to be moving funds to for-profit Element")

jMyles 3y ago
The issue is several years old, but the comments that are new - and of interest - are those that assert the statement int he submitted title. Without taking a position on the underlying issue (I'm broadly pro-matrix), I wonder: is it worth considering whether this is a scenario worth an addition carve-out of the "original title" rule?
- dang 3y ago
  Possibly - but then if the story is significant there will surely be an article or post or report about it someplace that can be linked to. I agree that none of those rules are 100% crisp and there's room for smudginess.

COGlory 3y ago

OK? What do we expect them to do with the money, exactly? As a donor, I would expect they fund the development of Matrix, which I believe Element is doing?

joshsimmons 3y ago
Thank you for being a donor! Naturally, you can expect us to eventually publish an annual report that details revenue, expenses, and programmatic activities. At a high level, the payments to Element includes administrative services (accounting, legal, etc), operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. In terms of funding development, the Foundation's focus has mostly been on building open source trust and safety tooling since that is a gap that others haven't addressed.
zamalek 3y ago
EMS (New Vector Ltd.) is not the same thing as Element. It is the first-party SAAS offering of Element/Matrix. It would be like Terraform accepting donations, and paying Hashicorp. That being said, it's completely plausible that this is salary for development time. Being tight-lipped about it is suspicious though.
alohapersona3 3y ago
Luckily, it doesn't matter what individuals expect. There is written documentation on what the foundation is supposed to do or not to do: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/main/proposals/1779-open-governance.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/mai... Notably, "Code Core Team members must arrange their own funding for their time", which I understand as such that the Foundation does not pay directly the developers (same as other standards organizations like IETF). That said, if it was decided that developers get paid by Matrix.org Foundation for developing Matrix.org clients and servers, I wonder how this process works, given that I highly doubt that developers of Conduit, Fractal or Quaternion received any of the funds of Matrix.org foundation. Main tasks of Matrix.org Foundation is maintaining the spec, documentation, owning IP, promotion and the matrix.org home server. The home server is "generously hosted" by UpCloud (i.e. is not using New Vector EMS), at least according to the matrix.org website. Looking again at MSC1779, I noticed it says that one function of The Matrix.org Foundation is "Owns the copyright of the reference implementations of Matrix (i.e. everything in https://github.com/matrix-org https://github.com/matrix-org). By assigning copyright to the Foundation, it’s protected against New Vector ever being tempted to relicense it." That protection apparently wasn't very effective, but also notably, New Vector and their leadership clearly have shown to not stand behind the goals of the Foundation. As the leadership of New Vector is also part of the leadership of the Foundation, I see some huge potential for COI here.

jMyles 3y ago

Nothing jumps out that immediately causes me consternation as either an occasional donor or an (even more) occasional user, except perhaps the extreme delays in responses from foundation leadership. I broadly like matrix best of the chat/comms frameworks, but I keep turning back to signal, telegram, and whatsapp because of network effects. So, if shifting some personal efforts to the for-profit org makes sense to core devs... I can't really fault them. Cheers to alohapersona for keeping the fire going on this issue.

joshsimmons 3y ago
Hi there! Managing Director of the Foundation here. First, yes, the response times have not been great, though of course that's all been on the basis of volunteerism. Now that there's a full-time staffer you should expect better response times. Regarding the payments to Element: those are based on the many services for which we still rely on Element. The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services, operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. More details and context in my official reply: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...

psYchotic 3y ago

I have nothing interesting to contribute here, but I want to express my thanks to alohapersona3 for trying to hold the Matrix Foundation accountable!

Laaas 3y ago

I assume they're paying for a service, probably developing Matrix? I would rather have them use the small amount of money they have on developing Matrix rather than explaining where each coin went. This comment seems relevant: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1407653952 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...

joshsimmons 3y ago
The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services (accounting, legal, etc), operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. For the most part, the Foundation hasn't directed much funding to active development as other folks in the ecosystem have been doing that ably. That isn't to say we don't fund development though – most recently we've been investing in developing open source trust and safety tools.
makomk 3y ago
This reply about how in reality there's very little benefit to the community from the copyright being assigned to the foundation is a lot more perceptive than that comment, especially now that exactly what it foresaw has come to pass: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1407743790 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
- Laaas 3y ago
  What do you mean it has come to pass?
  - makomk 3y ago
    The server-side Matrix code developed by Element is no longer going to be released under the Apache 2 license. It's going to be dual-licensed AGPL/proprietary from now on and released from Element's own GitHub repositories with a CLA requiring copyright assignment to Element so they can use it in the proprietary version, and the foundation is dropping all development on the Apache 2 version since they're not interested in competing with Element. This was specifically to obstruct other companies from providing Matrix-based enterprise offerings. There was an announcement about it which made it onto HN a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162275

joshsimmons 3y ago

Thanks for the tag on the GitHub issue and for being a persistent advocate for transparency. Transparency is something we should expect from any open source foundation, and I am committed to delivering on that as the Foundation's first Managing Director. That said, it is the weekend :-) I'm happy to address all of the concerns and questions, and you'll hear more from me tomorrow – both here and on GitHub.

ajdude 3y ago
I'm very curious to see this point addressed: > According to the statement, the book value of cryptocurrency assets did not change between Oct 31, 2021 and Oct 31, 2022. This is questionable, to say it mild, given that there have been incoming cryptocurrency transactions publicly visible on the respective published blockchain addresses of The Matrix.org Foundation. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1672874902 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...
- joshsimmons 3y ago
  Yeah, that was surely an error. The value most definitely would have changed.
joshsimmons 3y ago
I've published my official response over on GitHub, where I provide context and answer the specific questions the OP has asked: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco... I'm copying the first part of my response here for y'all's convenience: Hi @alohapersona, I’ve included answers to your specific questions below, but first I wanted to share some context. You can expect the Matrix.org Foundation to grow and evolve like other open source foundations, in terms of incrementally staffing up, increasing transparency and community governance, and establishing programs that support the ecosystem. There are a lot of great examples we can learn from, though the manner in which we are starting adds some complexity. It’s a lot cleaner to start with a small balance and some IP than to inherit massive pre-existing commitments like running the matrix.org homeserver. The added complexity also makes things more difficult, and it’s fair to say the path to now has reflected that difficulty level. The Foundation hit a key milestone this year when it delivered on its promise to make its first hire. If you look at the landscape and the history, you’ll find that the first hire makes a radical difference in delivering on the kinds of things I see you’ve been seeking for the last four years. Setting expectations So, I’d like to set some expectations. The Foundation’s fiscal year, as you know by now, runs from November 1 to October 31, and it takes time to close the books. Especially when we’re still separating out our infrastructure and relying on people for whom the Foundation isn’t their first priority. After we close our books, two things happen: we send them off to the tax accountants, and I begin preparing our annual report. That annual report will cover revenue, expenses, and programmatic activity, all contextualized with our vision and where we are on the path to realizing our vision. The timeline is a little fuzzy, but I’d expect that annual report to land around March or April. And we should expect further maturation/normalization of process each successive year: when we seat our first elected Governing Board in 2024 Q2, I’ll finally have a board of community representatives to review and approve my budget! With that, we’ll start to see both a public budget before each financial year begins, and an annual report after it ends. Getting involved Ultimately, the project is to build this Foundation up into an independent, transparent, self-sustaining organization with community-driven governance at every layer. We will need continued mutual accountability to stay the course on the way to achieving that vision. To wit, I welcome call-ins and incisive questions, and also stress the need to be charitable with each other. This work is hard, it is painfully incremental, and it happens over the scale of years and decades. I do not, however, welcome escalation to Hacker News with bad faith editorializing, which brings out the worst in people and leaves me wasting time confronting FUD rather than tending to forward-looking work that truly serves the community. Starting fires like that isn’t helpful. For those who are invested in Matrix and want greater visibility into the Foundation’s activities, I invite you to join the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room I launched last month. We have a lovely community of people there who provide input, offer accountability, and join together to celebrate even the small successes on our collective journey to organizational maturity and self-governance. I hope this helps you and all those who read this to understand where we are, where we are going, why things are the way they are, and how to get involved. With gratitude, Josh Simmons Managing Director of the Matrix.org Foundation ad astra per aspera

joemazerino 3y ago

The owing balance of Vector is concerning because the loan's payment, interest or default has to be marked in the books. People think running a non profit is easier but its much more difficult considering external, anonymous stakeholders.

joshsimmons 3y ago
Hi there! I'm the Managing Director of the Foundation. That owing balance is down to the many services for which we rely on Element. The Foundation has a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Element which includes administrative services, operation of the matrix.org homeserver, and secondment of several personnel whose responsibilities include advocacy, program management, standards work, and trust and safety. The MSA also includes provisions for the Foundation to reimburse Element for any bills they pay on our behalf. More details and context in my official reply: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco... Happy to address any other concerns or questions you may have.

Zetobal 3y ago

I am following the thread for years now and their financials were always a shitshow. I believe they never released anything on time or without the community begging for it. Well, except some fluff blog post at the end of the year without real data. I love Matrix but it's a fishy foundation. With this and Element not releasing server code under apache 2 anymore, it looks more and more like Element is going for entshitification. Edit: Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round. sic

lolinder 3y ago
> Edit: Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round. This is more of a meta-comment, but responding to a reply by editing your comment isn't fair play. It retroactively colors their response, and if they want to reply to your edit then the whole thread becomes a mess to follow for anyone else. Let Josh have his say and reply to him if you think his response is deflection, but please don't preempt him with a sarcastic edit.
- vilunov 3y ago
  That edit was here before that comment received any replies, so this is not a response by edit.
vilunov 3y ago
> Well, Josh is here so he will again start to deflect for some weeks and hope everyone will just forget about it until the next merry go round This has been my experience with how Matrix handles critique in general, e.g. the response to "why not matrix?" which left me disappointed. Looking at this, and also at low quality of the reference clients and servers, over-engineered protocols and the poor UX in general it does not convince me that Matrix is a good solution to consider.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  Why not Matrix? Here's one reason: it has incredibly hard-to-debug edge cases, and plenty of bugs. One of my favourites is the one where people are kicked out of your room at random, which was reported a year ago[0]. It wasn't fixed, however, because the head of the Matrix foundation (Matthew) didn't seem to like the issue being posted on Twitter. The reporter took down the tweet, and it's still now effectively abandoned (despite it still being an issue; I've spoken to quite a few mods about it). This is honestly really disappointing behaviour from a platform owner. [0]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481 https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/14481

Hydraulix989 3y ago

[flagged]