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I find this comment interesting: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/113848890455666110 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/113848890455666110 where IMO it is

I find this comment interesting: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/113848890455666110 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/113848890455666110 where IMO it is stated that Deutsche Telekom (with HessenConnect 2.0) did the free-riding and "directly contributed to layoffs at Element in 2022 and 2023". It sounds as if Telekom changed its mind after an initial contract or something. Or was Telekom one of many companies that did a similar thing? I know from my own experience that making money based on an open source project is extremely challenging. However, I don't understand why they frame their Pro version in this way and point to failure instead of success. I can't think of a better way (they will have to do the work :)). But it's already a good thing if they've won them as "Matrix believers", and they shouldn't scare them to get there.

Arathorn 2y ago
> Or was Telekom one of many companies that did a similar thing? This. > However, I don't understand why they frame their Pro version in this way and point to failure instead of success. It’s really trying to spell out the risks of freeriding, given the severity of the situation. But you’re right that it may well be too negative. > I can't think of a better way (they will have to do the work :)). Someone proposed a better positioning in the OP thread at: https://ioc.exchange/@troed/113843356547707182 https://ioc.exchange/@troed/113843356547707182
JeremyNT 2y ago
Why does anybody want to host large scale Matrix servers anyway? Aren't they already helping just by providing infrastructure to run the software at all? Is anybody anywhere - Deutsche Telekom included - actually making money here?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  I'll try to explain the situation: Some massive organisation (government agency, healthcare provider, network of schools etc) says: "Wow, Matrix is great, we should run our own instance rather than be dependent on Teams/Slack/Workspace. I'll put out a public tender for suppliers to provide this for us!" Then, all the system integrators who are geared up to sell big IT projects to large organisations jump on the tender and say "Sure, we can do this for you, and we're best qualified to do so because we're an enormous trusted system integrator with loads of people in the right geography, got all the right compliance checkboxes, and we do this sort of thing all the time. It'll cost you $xM a year." The upstream developer (Element) then reaches out to the integrators and says: "Oh hi! Are you planning to bid on this contract? If you want this to be successful, you should use our commercial offering, as then we'll be able to use that $ to keep upstream development alive". The integrator then looks bewildered, and says: "But... we've been using your opensource distro off github and it seems fine? Why would we pay you guys anything? The additional cost will just make our bid too expensive and we won't win, or it'll kill our profit margins. Sorry, we'll go ahead without you and maintain the software ourselves if needed." Given the main paying customers for Matrix are big organisations wanting digital sovereignty, this means the available $ disappears into the integrators rather making is way to fund the actual upstream dev - which then ends up stagnating, stalled, and completely at risk - putting all of these projects at risk. facepalm. A variation on the problem is where the massive org decides to do the project in-house rather than via an integrator... but then still chooses to YOLO and freeride and given it'll cost less than using the commercial offering from the upstream. I can list at least 4 national governments who have taken this route. To solve it, options include: * The buyer could mandate that suppliers for the tender have to use the commercial offering from the upstream product rather than freeride on opensource. This is probably the easiest solution, but seems staggeringly rare - the only instance I know of who have taken this principled stand are ZenDiS in Germany (https://zendis.de https://zendis.de) and we are very thankful for it. * The upstream could make their commercial offering more valuable than the FOSS offering - e.g. additional domain-specific functionality: what we've done with Synapse Pro. * The upstream could make the FOSS licensing less permissive, to force integrators to contribute back. We already did this with AGPL Synapse in 2023: https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3 https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3, and it has helped a bit... but in practice, we just saw a fleet of major Matrix tenders go to system integrators who then apologetically cut Element out, despite AGPL - putting Element's funding for 2025 directly at risk. Which is why we're putting out brutal blog posts saying "Look, big organisations: if you try to freeride on FOSS your projects will fail" - and providing a quantified explanation of the value that the commercial offering provides... so that we can then take the $ and hopefully keep the primary FOSS project on the road.
  - eredengrin 2y ago
    That's depressing and yet unfortunately not very surprising to read. > but in practice, we just saw a fleet of major Matrix tenders go to system integrators who then apologetically cut Element out, despite AGPL - putting Element's funding for 2025 directly at risk. I appreciate the transparency and you totally don't have to but not sure I fully understand this sentence, do you mind explaining that further?
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      It means that in the last few weeks, we’ve seen multiple large Matrix tenders go through the process described in the parent post, and say “hey, actually we’re just going to use your opensource stack for free.”. We were hoping to use the $ from these tenders to pay us to keep working on Element in 2025, but now have a hole to fill. Hence putting out this “no, seriously, your massive Element deployment will fail if you do that” blog post.
  - traspler 2y ago
    "Look, big organisations: if you try to freeride on FOSS your projects will fail" - I always understood "freeriding on FOSS" to mean reselling/repackaging without contribution to the project. But using "freeride" in the context of a company using a freely available FOSS tool by themselves ("org decides to do the project in-house") sounds strange to me. If the license allows me to use it why blame and shame orgs and people for using it?

Arathorn 2y ago

> Or was Telekom one of many companies that did a similar thing? This. > However, I don't understand why they frame their Pro version in this way and point to failure instead of success. It’s really trying to spell out the risks of freeriding, given the severity of the situation. But you’re right that it may well be too negative. > I can't think of a better way (they will have to do the work :)). Someone proposed a better positioning in the OP thread at: https://ioc.exchange/@troed/113843356547707182 https://ioc.exchange/@troed/113843356547707182

JeremyNT 2y ago

Why does anybody want to host large scale Matrix servers anyway? Aren't they already helping just by providing infrastructure to run the software at all? Is anybody anywhere - Deutsche Telekom included - actually making money here?

Arathorn 2y ago
I'll try to explain the situation: Some massive organisation (government agency, healthcare provider, network of schools etc) says: "Wow, Matrix is great, we should run our own instance rather than be dependent on Teams/Slack/Workspace. I'll put out a public tender for suppliers to provide this for us!" Then, all the system integrators who are geared up to sell big IT projects to large organisations jump on the tender and say "Sure, we can do this for you, and we're best qualified to do so because we're an enormous trusted system integrator with loads of people in the right geography, got all the right compliance checkboxes, and we do this sort of thing all the time. It'll cost you $xM a year." The upstream developer (Element) then reaches out to the integrators and says: "Oh hi! Are you planning to bid on this contract? If you want this to be successful, you should use our commercial offering, as then we'll be able to use that $ to keep upstream development alive". The integrator then looks bewildered, and says: "But... we've been using your opensource distro off github and it seems fine? Why would we pay you guys anything? The additional cost will just make our bid too expensive and we won't win, or it'll kill our profit margins. Sorry, we'll go ahead without you and maintain the software ourselves if needed." Given the main paying customers for Matrix are big organisations wanting digital sovereignty, this means the available $ disappears into the integrators rather making is way to fund the actual upstream dev - which then ends up stagnating, stalled, and completely at risk - putting all of these projects at risk. facepalm. A variation on the problem is where the massive org decides to do the project in-house rather than via an integrator... but then still chooses to YOLO and freeride and given it'll cost less than using the commercial offering from the upstream. I can list at least 4 national governments who have taken this route. To solve it, options include: * The buyer could mandate that suppliers for the tender have to use the commercial offering from the upstream product rather than freeride on opensource. This is probably the easiest solution, but seems staggeringly rare - the only instance I know of who have taken this principled stand are ZenDiS in Germany (https://zendis.de https://zendis.de) and we are very thankful for it. * The upstream could make their commercial offering more valuable than the FOSS offering - e.g. additional domain-specific functionality: what we've done with Synapse Pro. * The upstream could make the FOSS licensing less permissive, to force integrators to contribute back. We already did this with AGPL Synapse in 2023: https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3 https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3, and it has helped a bit... but in practice, we just saw a fleet of major Matrix tenders go to system integrators who then apologetically cut Element out, despite AGPL - putting Element's funding for 2025 directly at risk. Which is why we're putting out brutal blog posts saying "Look, big organisations: if you try to freeride on FOSS your projects will fail" - and providing a quantified explanation of the value that the commercial offering provides... so that we can then take the $ and hopefully keep the primary FOSS project on the road.
- eredengrin 2y ago
  That's depressing and yet unfortunately not very surprising to read. > but in practice, we just saw a fleet of major Matrix tenders go to system integrators who then apologetically cut Element out, despite AGPL - putting Element's funding for 2025 directly at risk. I appreciate the transparency and you totally don't have to but not sure I fully understand this sentence, do you mind explaining that further?
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    It means that in the last few weeks, we’ve seen multiple large Matrix tenders go through the process described in the parent post, and say “hey, actually we’re just going to use your opensource stack for free.”. We were hoping to use the $ from these tenders to pay us to keep working on Element in 2025, but now have a hole to fill. Hence putting out this “no, seriously, your massive Element deployment will fail if you do that” blog post.
- traspler 2y ago
  "Look, big organisations: if you try to freeride on FOSS your projects will fail" - I always understood "freeriding on FOSS" to mean reselling/repackaging without contribution to the project. But using "freeride" in the context of a company using a freely available FOSS tool by themselves ("org decides to do the project in-house") sounds strange to me. If the license allows me to use it why blame and shame orgs and people for using it?