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> Yes, if a govt has a “we must only spend money on pure open source products” policy then they won’t buy Synapse Pro. I imagine anything else would be quite i

> Yes, if a govt has a “we must only spend money on pure open source products” policy then they won’t buy Synapse Pro. I imagine anything else would be quite irresponsible in a geopolitical climate where sanctions could pull the rug out on critical communications infrastructure. eg: https://element.io/blog/senators-implore-department-of-defense-to-expand-the-use-of-matrix/ https://element.io/blog/senators-implore-department-of-defen... If Matrix is just "yet another service (SaaS)" competing with Slack, MS Teams and the like it becomes a much less compelling argument for public infrastructure. You better have a product that is so much superior in functionality that it is worth the switching cost for customers.

Arathorn 2y ago
> I imagine anything else would be quite irresponsible in a geopolitical climate where sanctions could pull the rug out on critical communications infrastructure. I'm not sure I follow the logic here: Governments can self-host their own infrastructure and avoid potential sanctions without it having to be open source. Meanwhile, empirically, all Governments continue to spend eyewatering amounts of proprietary software - whether that's from Microsoft or Adobe or Google or whoever. It's excruciating that in practice, only a miniscule proportion of that gets routed to open source - and even then, it's typically on a "we'll pay for features, but not maintenance" basis. So I'm not seeing any “we must only spend money on pure open source products” in practice; the closest is "if we're paying for something to be built, it needs to be open source" (which makes perfect sense, imo). > If Matrix is just "yet another service (SaaS)" competing with Slack, MS Teams and the like it becomes a much less compelling argument for public infrastructure. Matrix is an open protocol - it's not remotely "yet another SaaS". There's already a selection of different server implementations; some FOSS, some proprietary. You can switch between servers, and switch between clients. The fact that one server has added acceleration to enable successful massive-scale implementations and kept that as proprietary (for now) does not undermine the protocol - or stop govts from purchasing it, imo. I think we may need to agree to disagree on this one tho :)
- ssivark 2y ago
  Thanks for engaging. Your comments point to a different mental model for thinking about government procurement of software. Not sure whether I'm convinced, but it's certainly food for thought.

Arathorn 2y ago

> I imagine anything else would be quite irresponsible in a geopolitical climate where sanctions could pull the rug out on critical communications infrastructure. I'm not sure I follow the logic here: Governments can self-host their own infrastructure and avoid potential sanctions without it having to be open source. Meanwhile, empirically, all Governments continue to spend eyewatering amounts of proprietary software - whether that's from Microsoft or Adobe or Google or whoever. It's excruciating that in practice, only a miniscule proportion of that gets routed to open source - and even then, it's typically on a "we'll pay for features, but not maintenance" basis. So I'm not seeing any “we must only spend money on pure open source products” in practice; the closest is "if we're paying for something to be built, it needs to be open source" (which makes perfect sense, imo). > If Matrix is just "yet another service (SaaS)" competing with Slack, MS Teams and the like it becomes a much less compelling argument for public infrastructure. Matrix is an open protocol - it's not remotely "yet another SaaS". There's already a selection of different server implementations; some FOSS, some proprietary. You can switch between servers, and switch between clients. The fact that one server has added acceleration to enable successful massive-scale implementations and kept that as proprietary (for now) does not undermine the protocol - or stop govts from purchasing it, imo. I think we may need to agree to disagree on this one tho :)

ssivark 2y ago
Thanks for engaging. Your comments point to a different mental model for thinking about government procurement of software. Not sure whether I'm convinced, but it's certainly food for thought.