this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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their clients are proprietary but it’s built on matrix (federated chat kinda like xmpp) and their bridges (things that connect matrix to other protocols) are open source
they say you can use any matrix client, and that you can host your own home server with their bridges
I have my own matrix server that I primarily use like beeper and bridge all my chats together. Even using some of their bridges, it's been pretty reliable for years.
I know that a few people are hating on the closed source client, but that feels unfair to me. They provide lots of open code in the form of bridges which is really the meat of the offering. Their client just makes using the bridges easier for the lay person. The bridges are super easy to use without it, invite the bridge bot to a chat room, type login and do what it says, then type login-matrix and your pretty much done.
The I suspect that the same people who are displeased about the closed client also like using tailscale which is generally pretty popular but has closed source clients on Windows and Mac as well as the server (though all support the open source headscale server)
yeah... pragmatism beats purity every time: they're doing some great work, but to do that great work they have to fund it somehow... i think that open sourcing all of the functional components (the bridges) and keeping the shiny UI closed is a pretty good way of doing that!
i guess i get not wanting to used closed source clients too, but it's shades of grey: people shouldn't hate on them for keeping 1 part closed source!
Only problem is, the average user gets hooked to the shiny UI, not to the invisible backend.
When Microsoft bought Skype, they switched from a secure P2P network to a server-centered network easy to mitm... and the majority of users said nothing. Later on, they switched a few UI elements, and suddenly there was a user uproar.
If Beeper gains any traction, a shiny privative UI is their out to monetize/enshittify the service.
sure, but an open source UI isn’t going to change that… they’d just close the source!
sure you can fork it, but you can also just copy the UI to an open source clone
imagine if twitter were activitypub: kinda like having an OSS backend with a proprietary front end… i’d bet the move to mastodon would be far quicker… network effects keep people on twitter… same here with OSS backend: we can reimplement the UI and people will have the same experience
Based on the history of how Google Chat used XMPP to federate and basically siphon users into its closed UI, then defederate... I no longer trust anyone with a closed UI that's planning to offer "extra value" to its users.
If someone closed their open UI, you can always fork the last open version, which at least gives you an even start.
If ~~Twitter~~ 𝕏 were to switch to ActivityPub... I'd actually worry about people flocking back to 𝕏, back to their old networks and recommendation algorithms. Guess it's no longer possible, since 𝕏 pretty much destroyed the old Twitter environment, but I'd still worry... and with Elon wanting to make 𝕏 a "social network for everything", that sounds dangerously close to ActivityPub.
you’re missing the fact that google chat and XMPP is a totally different situation… they used an open protocol; they didn’t open their backend