A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends (element.io)

submitted 2 years ago by vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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Synapse and Dendrite relicensed to AGPLv3

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[+] yote_zip@pawb.social 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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[-] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 years ago

Conduit is also licensed under Apache 2.0, so it could also be taken closed source at any point in time. The reason this wouldn't impact Conduit as much is that there're other contributors, whilst Synapse and Dendrite are almost exclusively developed by Element.

The CLA is necessary since Element funds the development of their servers by contracting with companies, governments and institutions which have special needs. Publishing those patches might be against their customers wishes.

The AGPL ensures no one else can make proprietary changes but Element because of their CLA. This makes it unattractive for companies and volunteers to contribute to Element's servers, which isn't a problem because those contributors didn't exist in the first place.

As I understand it, the people who feel strongly about this change feel like their trust was betrayed by Element. The others are probably corporation's like reddit who don't want to contribute anyway but are now not able to profit off of Elements work.

My opinion is split. On the one hand I like the change to AGPL, since it forces forks to continue to be foss. On the other hand, Element continues to be allowed to license the code differently, so it doesn't really change that the code could be closed off at any point in time.

The most important question is whether this change will benefit Element. Status quo is companies taking without giving back. Now corporations and volunteers won't contribute code because of the CLA and AGPL. This means Element hopes those corporations will contract with Element to get access to differently licensed code for a monetary contribution.

I think reddit will just develop their own server, but maybe smaller companies (like in the health care sector) will pay Element.

[-] mat@linux.community 6 points 2 years ago

I really, really hope this leads to development of data portability/server migration options. When I set my homeserver up, I chose Synapse as I didn't know about the other servers. Now that I do, and would like to switch away because of Synapse's performance problems and the new CLA stuff, I realize I and all my users are fully locked in, and would have to start from scratch (lose all chats, profiles, etc) to migrate.

[-] u_tamtam@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

Just give XMPP a shot... It's what Matrix has been promising to be without ever actually delivering, was there a decade prior and still will be after the next.

Matrix's purpose was to be a VC unicorn for is founders, it's not tackling a new problem, it's not bringing a novel or interesting solution, and everything that it does differently on a technical level seems to go against its goals and those of its users. Time to drop them was someandsome ago, but it's never too late.

[-] johntash@eviltoast.org 4 points 2 years ago

Is there a good way to handle e2e encryption on xmpp? I feel like that is one of the selling points of matrix. Iirc there was an OTR plugin for gaim/pidgin, but I have no idea what's normal these days

[-] u_tamtam@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

XMPP's E2EE is comparable to everything else out there (Signal, Matrix, WhatsApp, …) in that it uses Signal's double-ratchet algorithm (guaranteeing perfect forward secrecy and al.). All maintained clients support it: https://omemo.top/

[-] soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago

My hope for XMPP is that new and better clients emerge than the ones that already exist. Matrix has this same problem as well.

[-] u_tamtam@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

Of course I wouldn't complain if more and more clients popped up, but IMO what matters is that the ones we currently have remain well maintained over time, in the hands of people who know what they are doing, and that there is one such client per platform, which is effectively the case today.

If you have ideas on how to improve current clients, I'm sure people would take your remarks and contributions kindly (for instance, there's a zoo of pretty clients that forked from Conversations on Android, Dino tries to be a minimalistic client for the simple needs and is getting an official Windows build soon, etc)

[-] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

XMPP was there before Matrix and will be there after Matrix dies when the venture capitalists behind Element funding decide to move the money somewhere else.

[-] u_tamtam@programming.dev 5 points 2 years ago

Matrix finances are running dry , and this is just the beginning.
It's bad omen to criticize an opensource project, I know, but in my eyes Matrix is a big technical and organizational failure, for not having succeeded in stabilizing the protocol after a whole decade of unsuccessful explorations, and for having its leadership consistently fail to define clear goals and steer the project towards them (just get it done and working well before trying to make it "peer to peer" or "in the metaverse").

If this is the electroshock that Matrix needs to reconsider its design and directions? good for them. If that kills them? Well too bad, but it's not like they are the only cool kid in town.

[-] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Matrix is not an "open source project". It's a VC funded company.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago

This is pretty bad in terms of software freedom. However I see why they did it.

What needs to happen is that Matrix need to focus stability and user friendliness. Right now no major group or company wants it because its a mess

[-] vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Right now no major group or company wants it
most people beyond the tech field [don't] know what Matrix is

Wrong

Amongst others...

[-] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago

Why you think this is bad for software freedom?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago

It allows for proprietary use of a FOSS. Its true that almost all of the contributions are from element but that doesn't make it right.

Element is in trouble and they are trying to stay afloat

[-] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

Quite the opposite. Synapse was licenced under Apache licence, which allowed everybody to make proprietary fork.

Now only Element can do proprietary fork, as they are the copyright owners and owner of the work can relicence the software as they want.

The CLA that Element require to contribute changes to their Synapse version is the controversial thing. Because if you contribute, the lines of code you made are your copyright, so if Element takes at least one community contribution the would be locked to AGPL. What CLA does is that you sign off those rights.

[-] soulfirethewolf@lemdro.id 0 points 2 years ago

‘Matrix-based’ is now specified as a requirement in massive public and private sector tenders

I'm pretty sure that most people beyond the tech field know what Matrix is. At least not by name

[-] vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

https://lemmy.world/comment/5411224

this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023

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