There are forks of the Signal client that do use the OWS servers [1], but IIUC they are in violation of the OWS TOS. Certainly moxie has threatened to block forked clients, which is why F-droid won't host any of these forks [2].

[1]: https://github.com/tw-hx/Signal-Android

[2]: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/we-can-include-signal-in-f-droid...

I actually do not find this unreasonable, maintaining and providing backwards support everyone's custom version with their own quirks would be a big technical burden.

Moxie openly admits he centralized because it is easier and that decentralizing is too hard. We should all just give up and pick the least bad centralized service.

With that thinking we would all be using AOL.

Making a robust flexible protocol that can support a bunch of different client and service implementations is hard, but that is how we ended up avoiding email and web browsing being controlled by a single entity.

Matrix is solving the hard problem of providing the core functionality of tools like Slack and Whatsapp without sacrificing user freedom or asking you to trust any one entity.

This is what ethical engineering looks like, and I don't mind tolerating occasional growing pains in exchange for freedom.

Then no support should be provided for these forks. Caveat emptor unless you use the official client.

Allowing modding and forks does not mean you have to provide support for them.

Exactly this. You don't have to prohibit homosexuality just because you don't want to deal with adding support to your database of married citizens / prohibit forks because you don't want to support them.

The argument makes no sense. I can't decide if Moxie is a double agent with street cred or honestly trying to do good here.

I am generally a pretty decent read of people and in my observations and interactions with him I genuinely believe he believes a benevolent dictator building a centralized system is the only way to bring non-profit-motivated secure messaging to the masses, and that if one accepts this seemingly irrefutable truth, then the best candidate for the job is himself.

He is charismatic, highly intelligent, and lives by his own moral compass, rejecting FOSS ethos and silicon valley capitalist ethos alike.

This makes him especially dangerous.