I have been burned in the past and I have zero interest in contributing anything that will end up in proprietary code.
> This offers no protection against Element dropping open source entirely the next time they hit a "budget crisis."
IANAL, but I think you have this completely wrong. The clarification to the Apache CLA was added to ensure that if Element ever distributed contributed code as proprietary (i.e. by providing an AGPL exception to someone allergic to AGPL) then we will also have to distribute that code as FOSS. It is *LITERALLY* stopping us from dropping open source.
> the consistent failures in communication constantly make it feel like things are going to implode
I wonder how much of the "consistent failures in communication" are due to FUD, and how much is due to bad comms in the first place...
As someone who doesn't read outside perspectives on Matrix, but probably checks the Foundation blog once a month, I would say the latter. You've created a perfectly tolerable product, aside from some (admittedly unfortunate) edge cases. More or less everyone acknowledges that Matrix is, at the bare minimum, usable for individuals chatting, if not the best option right now.
We did EOL the public Libera.Chat<->Matrix bridge we were previously operating, while at the same time expanding our advocacy work to make sure we don't end up with legislators undermining their goals around safety by introducing backdoors or dangerous surveillance.
I'd _love_ to hear your questions and concerns, so that I can address them, but it is hard to address what you've currently written as it is all based on the premise that Element and the Foundation are one in the same.
Rather, it's written under the premise that, at the time, there wasn't enough distinction between "The Matrix.org Foundation" and Element for it to make sense to differentiate the two as far as layoffs are concerned prior to hiring you: The Element layoff saw the firing of Matrix core contributors, and the Foundation had no employees at that time (as far as I'm aware).
The Element layoffs saw the reduction of the entirety of people concerned with Trust & Safety for Matrix. There is now one person hired by Matrix.org to handle it. This implies continuity.
The rest of the concerns listed are primarily about Element; I'm pretty confident the Foundation will end up doing okay in the long run. It is concerning that the reference implementation of the Matrix spec isn't owned by the Foundation and has a CLA, but I don't think there's a way of alleviating that concern in the present day with present funding levels, aside from Element assigning copyright of Dendrite to Matrix.org, or something.
They've already done so. 2023 saw a (rather extensive) wave of layoffs, and a reduction in scale.
Part of the issue is that Matthew is not the best communicator, which isn't great for fundraising. That being said, Josh isn't off to a strong start, either.
Somehow, neither of them managed to spin the Apache -> AGPL move for Synapse as a good thing, despite it pretty transparently being better not only for the ecosystem, but for users. No freedom is lost from the perspective of a user of the software with the switch, as Apache isn't copyleft.
The CLA is unfortunate, and a less controversial strategy would have been to emulate Trolltech's "If we become a bad actor, we're legally compelled to release the source under a permissive license" approach to CLAs.
Further, the wording of docs around the CLA is really scummy.
> Everyone is welcome to contribute code to Synapse, provided that they are willing to license their contributions to Element under a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). This ensures that their contribution will be made available under an OSI-approved open-source license, currently Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3).
It's hard to see this as short of deliberately misleading. For developer trust, they should have just said transparently in the paragraph that they needed it to sell AGPL exceptions. The wording of the CLA itself is pretty bad, though I'm sure the lawyer responsible thought it was clever.
> Element shall be entitled to make Your Contribution available under Element’s proprietary software licence, provided that Element shall also make Your Contribution available under the terms of an OSI-approved open-source license.
This offers no protection against Element dropping open source entirely the next time they hit a "budget crisis." Your Contribution will be safe in the archived version, but there's not even a guarantee that your attribution will be kept with the OSI license they choose to relicense your commit to upon subsequent releases, and this will still be within the legal rights of Element. The only thing you need to do to fulfill availability requirements for the Simplified BSD License is to put the copyright notice in the binary.
Regardless of the technical merits of the platform, or lack thereof, the consistent failures in communication constantly make it feel like things are going to implode, and it seems like every time an adjustment for sustainability needs to happen, the Foundation drives itself directly into a ditch in terms of communication and outcomes. Even assuming good faith, which is fair, given the middle-upper class salaries of the Foundation members, they consistently choose to take the options that look like they're acting in the worst faith, both from a comms standpoint and an outcomes standpoint.
I don't get it.