Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@downey and to think they could have instead just built off of one of the many good #FOSS event apps like used at #FOSDEM, #CCC, and more.

@paoloredaelli @sammi @element "gratis" is clear to many English speakers since they also speak other languages, like EU standard English. For the majority of mother tongue English speakers, my guess is "gratis" would be weird but somehow understandable. There would be many who had never heard the word. "Gratuity" is probably the closest word in English, but has a different meaning.

(For context, my mother tongue is English, father tongue German, and I speak a bit of some other languages.)

@richiekhoo @sovtechfund yes, self-funded maintainers are an essential target for this kind of funding. I would also include volunteer maintainers, which is not the same thing. Many maintainers of key software pieces do want funding for the work, but funding can still go to others writing patches, etc

There also needs to be help getting companies understand that it is in their own interest to let their developers contribute to any project they rely on, no matter how indirectly they rely on it.

@CCC this gives me renewed energy for continuing to work on #TLS #EncryptedClientHello (#ECH).

@Orca that's disappointing...

@mvgorcum @paoloredaelli @element Ok, good to know! I was looking at the client, so I overlooked that. It is important that they've released key pieces, the bridges, as #FreeSoftware Let's hope this means they will contribute to the shared maintenance of the Matrix ecosystem for all the pieces they use.

Lots of hackers would love to go in an contribute to new projects. If there was a way that people could make a living doing that, we would greatly improve the #FreeSoftware ecosystem. Lots of devs want to improve the code they work on, but so many company ban employees from contributing to #FOSS. One promising new model is maintenance funding from governments and foundations, like @sovtechfund and #LinuxFoundation. Since 93% of codebases use #FOSS, this affects the entire software ecosystem

4/4

This also happens in companies, but the dynamic functions a bit differently. The maintainers will start quitting their jobs, reducing the number of people who know the code. In a number of companies, I've seen this happen where the end result is an essential system that no present employee understands. So no one is allowed to touch it as long as it is working. This happens at mega corps and small companies alike. I experienced it at Merrill Lynch, a wealthy bank that was always cutting costs 3/

This can turn into a downward spiral, because it can drive away contributors, making things worse. Then only the ones who really feel responsible for their user base will continue working on it. Then ultimately they can burnout and the thing goes down in flames. The #XZBackdoor is a version of this dynamic. The #XZUtils maintainer was caught in that dynamic and felt he could not keep up, and was desparate for help since so many essential pieces of software rely on it.

2/

There is a dynamic that arises when there is a growing difference between the amount of maintenance required and available developer time. The maintainers need help to keep up. Until then, they need to ensure that the essentials are maintained. That in turn makes it harder for others to contribute, because the maintainer cannot afford to take any risks that might trigger unexpected work sometime later. So the maintainers have less time to review, less time to help complete merge requests, etc 1/

@alloydflanagan @downey @neil From what I see, it is the other way around: Automattic has a pretty good track record of FOSS (Wordpress, Pocket Casts) while at this point, Beeper is mostly just a consumer of FOSS produced by others. So hopefully Automattic will follow the Pocket Casts pattern and start open sourcing the Beeper app.

@paoloredaelli yeah, I'm sure they're using the existing #matrix libraries from @element. The real question is: will they open up their app and get it on #FDroid!

#Automattic just acquired #Texts and #Beeper, two #matrix chat apps that work with a bunch of bridges to popular apps :

* https://blog.beeper.com/2024/04/09/beeper-is-joining-automattic/
* https://automattic.com/2024/04/09/automattic-acquires-beeper/

I really hope they open source it.
Since they are going for a fee-for-service model like Wordpress, I'm optimistic. This is key for breaking the network effects that #gatekeeper companies rely on: #Apple #Meta #Facebook #WhatsApp #Discord #Telegram #Signal.

@IzzyOnDroid @fdroidorg I'm happy to see @obfusk continuing with the very important work on #APK signature analysis and the related tooling. I was worried she had stopped working on it after quitting F-Droid. That work is bigger than F-Droid, it is otherwise missing in the Android ecosystem.

@IzzyOnDroid @obfusk @fdroidorg sorry, I guess I should have started a new thread. I'm not so good at the social medias...

@IzzyOnDroid @obfusk @fdroidorg That was not directed at you, that was my takeaway from the analysis I posted in the 1/2 post. The TL;DR.