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I love the concept behind the Matrix protocol, but I have zero faith in the Matrix Foundations ability to execute. Folks have been asking for financial tranpar

I love the concept behind the Matrix protocol, but I have zero faith in the Matrix Foundations ability to execute. Folks have been asking for financial tranparency for years now (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issuecomment-1820037667 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571#issueco...). And all that we get are posts like this complainging about not having enough money and threatening to shut things down, repeatedly. Maybe if they were more open and transparent, folks could help get them on the right track, either by making recomendations to improve, volunteering to help with things, or contributeing financially. I really want them to succeed, but this has been going on for years now.

neiljohnson 2y ago
The intention is very much to offer greater financial transparency, in fact doing so is a prerequisite for multiple funding sources. The Matrix Foundation Governing Board now has a dedicated finance committee, I don't have concrete timelines for publishing, though I would expect this to happen within a small number of months. https://matrix.org/blog/2024/12/governing-board-first-report/ https://matrix.org/blog/2024/12/governing-board-first-report...
- dvdkon 2y ago
  I've never run a non-profit, but what's stopping the Foundation from releasing a raw dump of expenses? Where I live, all government contracts/invoices need to be published before they come into effect. This obviously required some setup, but presumably you already have similar data as a source for the planned report, why not release it?
  - bluesomewhere 2y ago
    Because a raw dump of expenses obscures many important details, and sets people up for misunderstanding things and reporting them out of context. I'd love to get to a point of radical and automatic transparency as you describe, but that takes a great deal of effort to do well – and the Matrix.org Foundation is still in its infancy. Gotta learn to walk before we can run!
thibaultamartin 2y ago
Per https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$xga3TYyVs8CMtoH6JHszPBL1S0WUJ75Yx-S0q_NuysE?via=matrix.org&via=element.io&via=envs.net https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$xga3TYyV... > T&S staffing alone is about $360k/yr, and server and SRE costs about $240k/yr And per https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$pupglsTXpNOlbgKBYceG0nmepzPY7fwLeBYccHwqRb0?via=matrix.org&via=element.io&via=envs.net https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$pupglsTX... > There's a rough cost breakdown available to the Governing Board right now in Discourse, which we'll be polishing and publishing after our first Finance and Fundraising Committee meeting So the financial report is finally coming together. We have quite a handful of volunteers and a strong community that is helping us a lot already. But some things cannot be offloaded to volunteers (typically T&S and the SRE team running the matrix.org homeserver). Can you expand on your doubts for the ability to execute? The Foundation has a narrow set of programs on purpose, and it's not implementing any server or client for example. Most of the budget is going to matrix.org and keeping it safe (which is a lot of invisible and thankless work).
- tredre3 2y ago
  > Can you expand on your doubts for the ability to execute? I have faith that the foundation manages its finance properly. I believe the Matrix protocol (and ecosystem) is full of good, needed, ideas. But the software produced by the foundation is simply bad. From the clients to the servers. In every single matrix threads, complaints about the UX or performance abound. Usually followed by people from the foundation saying it's fixed in X or 2.0. Or by fanboys saying it's not a real problem and wasting resources on UX is dumb. That's been going on for almost a decade now. That's a clear demonstration of a lack of ability to execute on a good idea.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    > But the software produced by the foundation is simply bad. The foundation produces things like the spec and the e2ee libs. The last time the foundation produced a client was in 2015, and servers in 2023 - in both instances the wider community builds the implementations, just as W3C doesn’t make web browsers any more. > Usually followed by people from the foundation saying it's fixed in X or 2.0. Could this be because… it’s fixed in Element X or Matrix 2.0, perhaps?
ajdude 2y ago
A breakdown was actually just posted on that thread an hour ago: And in terms of numbers, out of the $1.2M annual costs we mention there, here's the rough breakdown: * $360K/yr – Trust & Safety * $250K/yr – Other folks, covering program management, legal, compliance, finance, IT, security, dev * $240K/yr – Server and SRE * $170K/yr – My salary, covering fundraising, open governance, community relations, biz ops, and people mgmt * $150K/yr – Matrix Conf + other events * $30K/yr – Assorted expenses like travel, lodging, productivity infra

neiljohnson 2y ago

The intention is very much to offer greater financial transparency, in fact doing so is a prerequisite for multiple funding sources. The Matrix Foundation Governing Board now has a dedicated finance committee, I don't have concrete timelines for publishing, though I would expect this to happen within a small number of months. https://matrix.org/blog/2024/12/governing-board-first-report/ https://matrix.org/blog/2024/12/governing-board-first-report...

dvdkon 2y ago
I've never run a non-profit, but what's stopping the Foundation from releasing a raw dump of expenses? Where I live, all government contracts/invoices need to be published before they come into effect. This obviously required some setup, but presumably you already have similar data as a source for the planned report, why not release it?
- bluesomewhere 2y ago
  Because a raw dump of expenses obscures many important details, and sets people up for misunderstanding things and reporting them out of context. I'd love to get to a point of radical and automatic transparency as you describe, but that takes a great deal of effort to do well – and the Matrix.org Foundation is still in its infancy. Gotta learn to walk before we can run!

thibaultamartin 2y ago

Per https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$xga3TYyVs8CMtoH6JHszPBL1S0WUJ75Yx-S0q_NuysE?via=matrix.org&via=element.io&via=envs.net https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$xga3TYyV... > T&S staffing alone is about $360k/yr, and server and SRE costs about $240k/yr And per https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$pupglsTXpNOlbgKBYceG0nmepzPY7fwLeBYccHwqRb0?via=matrix.org&via=element.io&via=envs.net https://matrix.to/#/!sWpnrYUMmaBrlqfRdn:matrix.org/$pupglsTX... > There's a rough cost breakdown available to the Governing Board right now in Discourse, which we'll be polishing and publishing after our first Finance and Fundraising Committee meeting So the financial report is finally coming together. We have quite a handful of volunteers and a strong community that is helping us a lot already. But some things cannot be offloaded to volunteers (typically T&S and the SRE team running the matrix.org homeserver). Can you expand on your doubts for the ability to execute? The Foundation has a narrow set of programs on purpose, and it's not implementing any server or client for example. Most of the budget is going to matrix.org and keeping it safe (which is a lot of invisible and thankless work).

tredre3 2y ago
> Can you expand on your doubts for the ability to execute? I have faith that the foundation manages its finance properly. I believe the Matrix protocol (and ecosystem) is full of good, needed, ideas. But the software produced by the foundation is simply bad. From the clients to the servers. In every single matrix threads, complaints about the UX or performance abound. Usually followed by people from the foundation saying it's fixed in X or 2.0. Or by fanboys saying it's not a real problem and wasting resources on UX is dumb. That's been going on for almost a decade now. That's a clear demonstration of a lack of ability to execute on a good idea.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  > But the software produced by the foundation is simply bad. The foundation produces things like the spec and the e2ee libs. The last time the foundation produced a client was in 2015, and servers in 2023 - in both instances the wider community builds the implementations, just as W3C doesn’t make web browsers any more. > Usually followed by people from the foundation saying it's fixed in X or 2.0. Could this be because… it’s fixed in Element X or Matrix 2.0, perhaps?

ajdude 2y ago

A breakdown was actually just posted on that thread an hour ago: And in terms of numbers, out of the $1.2M annual costs we mention there, here's the rough breakdown: * $360K/yr – Trust & Safety * $250K/yr – Other folks, covering program management, legal, compliance, finance, IT, security, dev * $240K/yr – Server and SRE * $170K/yr – My salary, covering fundraising, open governance, community relations, biz ops, and people mgmt * $150K/yr – Matrix Conf + other events * $30K/yr – Assorted expenses like travel, lodging, productivity infra