4 ms·

Tchap (the chat part of the suite) is indeed a fork of Element. Unfortunately they haven't funded upstream development for many years (otherwise both Element an

Tchap (the chat part of the suite) is indeed a fork of Element. Unfortunately they haven't funded upstream development for many years (otherwise both Element and Tchap would be much much better!) Visio (aka meet) began in parallel with Element's work on MatrixRTC and Element Call. Hopefully the two can converge, given they are both built on LiveKit.

tabbott 9mo ago
It really has been a huge disappointment the extent to which governments using open source projects for mission critical work go out of their way to avoid financially supporting them. How much better could open source alternatives to Teams be in this moment if only 1% of what Europe paid Microsoft for Teams went to investing in open alternatives?
sylvinus 9mo ago
We do support the foundation: https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/sinformer/espace-presse/dinum-soutien-fondation-matrixorg/ https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/sinformer/espace-presse/dinum-...
- Arathorn 9mo ago
  Yup, DINUM does support the Matrix Foundation, which is appreciated in terms of helping keeping Matrix itself alive and independent. However, this doesn't help support the folks improving & maintaining Element (either its clients or servers), which is the actual upstream product that Tchap is dependent on. Just like donating to the W3C doesn't help improve Firefox, if you were operationally dependent on a Firefox fork.
  - StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
    I think it's a very convenient way of framing it and nicely occults how the stewardship at Matrix significantly changed since they chose it for Tchap.
    - Arathorn 9mo ago
      We’re not trying to obscure anything: we very well know that Tchap’s adoption of Matrix and their current support (Foundation membership, code contributions to Element Web, evangelisation to other countries, etc.) are key to our success, and we are very grateful for it. We’re just stating facts: DINUM stopped funding upstream development at Element in 2022/2023 when their post-COVID funding evaporated, and this then directly contributed to the licensing changes at Element at the end of 2023 (https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/) as we tried to figure out a way to survive (which, thankfully, worked). But we also know that the Tchap team is very budget constrained internally themselves to keep it running, despite the growing criticality and huge visibility of the service, and are trying to find ways to fix the situation at every level. This is not a challenge limited to France: the question of how to support the upstream when heavily using open source was one of the top topics of last week’s Open Source Week in Brussels, involving folks at every level in European government.
dfex 9mo ago
It boggles the mind as to why they choose a name for this application that is very clearly a Microsoft trademark. In understand it's also the French word for Videoconferencing, but even still...
- KPGv2 9mo ago
  If French trademark law is even remotely close to US trademark law, it can't be applied to videoconferencing because you can't apply a trademark that is just the term for the category of product that is covered. So for example, I can't trademark "Apple" for my apple orchard. But I can trademark it for my computer company. Similarly, MS likely has chart visualization tools covered by "Visio" in France, but not telecommunications software. Trademarks aren't granted to a company for unrestricted use. They're granted for specific use. Like I can't found a computer company, get Apple trademarked, and then buy an orchard, use Apple for the orchard, and then sue every apple orchard for saying "XYZ Apples" in their name. It remains restricted to a specific use that was included in the initial application for TM.
wolvoleo 9mo ago
Oh I thought you said that you were doing custom features for the French government in a comment a few months ago. I must have misunderstood, sorry.

tabbott 9mo ago

It really has been a huge disappointment the extent to which governments using open source projects for mission critical work go out of their way to avoid financially supporting them. How much better could open source alternatives to Teams be in this moment if only 1% of what Europe paid Microsoft for Teams went to investing in open alternatives?

sylvinus 9mo ago

We do support the foundation: https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/sinformer/espace-presse/dinum-soutien-fondation-matrixorg/ https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/sinformer/espace-presse/dinum-...

Arathorn 9mo ago
Yup, DINUM does support the Matrix Foundation, which is appreciated in terms of helping keeping Matrix itself alive and independent. However, this doesn't help support the folks improving & maintaining Element (either its clients or servers), which is the actual upstream product that Tchap is dependent on. Just like donating to the W3C doesn't help improve Firefox, if you were operationally dependent on a Firefox fork.
- StopDisinfo910 9mo ago
  I think it's a very convenient way of framing it and nicely occults how the stewardship at Matrix significantly changed since they chose it for Tchap.
  - Arathorn 9mo ago
    We’re not trying to obscure anything: we very well know that Tchap’s adoption of Matrix and their current support (Foundation membership, code contributions to Element Web, evangelisation to other countries, etc.) are key to our success, and we are very grateful for it. We’re just stating facts: DINUM stopped funding upstream development at Element in 2022/2023 when their post-COVID funding evaporated, and this then directly contributed to the licensing changes at Element at the end of 2023 (https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/ https://element.io/blog/element-to-adopt-agplv3/) as we tried to figure out a way to survive (which, thankfully, worked). But we also know that the Tchap team is very budget constrained internally themselves to keep it running, despite the growing criticality and huge visibility of the service, and are trying to find ways to fix the situation at every level. This is not a challenge limited to France: the question of how to support the upstream when heavily using open source was one of the top topics of last week’s Open Source Week in Brussels, involving folks at every level in European government.

dfex 9mo ago

It boggles the mind as to why they choose a name for this application that is very clearly a Microsoft trademark. In understand it's also the French word for Videoconferencing, but even still...

KPGv2 9mo ago
If French trademark law is even remotely close to US trademark law, it can't be applied to videoconferencing because you can't apply a trademark that is just the term for the category of product that is covered. So for example, I can't trademark "Apple" for my apple orchard. But I can trademark it for my computer company. Similarly, MS likely has chart visualization tools covered by "Visio" in France, but not telecommunications software. Trademarks aren't granted to a company for unrestricted use. They're granted for specific use. Like I can't found a computer company, get Apple trademarked, and then buy an orchard, use Apple for the orchard, and then sue every apple orchard for saying "XYZ Apples" in their name. It remains restricted to a specific use that was included in the initial application for TM.

wolvoleo 9mo ago

Oh I thought you said that you were doing custom features for the French government in a comment a few months ago. I must have misunderstood, sorry.