You tried to apply far too much pressure over too large a surface area. Either make a more focused approach by not chasing Free Software and XMPP supremacy at the same time, or find ambient ways to give people options without forcing them to make choices in the direction you want. In particular, complaining about bridges usually doesn’t get the discussion to a useful place; instead, try showing people on the other side of the bridge how wonderful your experience is.
Also, I get that you might not personally like IRC, but you need to understand its place in high-reliability distributed systems before trying to replace it; the majority of them use IRC instead of XMPP for their disaster recovery precisely because its protocol jankiness makes it easier to wield in certain disaster situations.
It looks like you are more of an xmpp advocate than a free software advocate. If you want to join a matrix room and it’s too burdensome to do so through your xmpp client, then use a matrix client for that. Without some much better reasons for doing so, setting up a competing xmpp room is not a reasonable alternative.
The issue is above all that bridging to Telegram (a proprietary, centralized service) basically amounts to normalizing and encouraging proprietary services. The poor UX of bridges is a secondary issue.
You’re not the first person to seemingly have missed that I offered to bridge the XMPP room to the Matrix rroom, provided Telegram was de-bridged…I suppose it’s not clear from my writing.
I don’t think even RMS himself would refuse to participate in something on the grounds that Telegram users are also able to do so. It does not require compromising your free software ideals. By all means point out to them that you believe them to be doing something wrong, but the method you’ve chosen to try and get them to change their ways seems very likely to be ineffective and also counterproductive. It does further divide the community, even if others have already done even worse.
It does not require compromising your free software ideals
By which of course I mean what I think of as free software ideals, which I’ve come to understand in large part through the teachings of Richard Stallman even though I’m not personally such an idealist as he is. He Sometimes he even goes so far as to recommend people to services with non-free software on the server side, so long as it requires only free software on systems that the user controls. Your standards may differ. But anyway, if you had to quit fedi because someone set up a fediverse/telegram bridge I think it would not be a practical way to live. Where you draw the line is of course up to you, but I wouldn’t expect many people to follow you that far from the usual FOSS positions.
I completely agree that everyone should use free software. Not for free of course but by donating or straight up paying for it.
That aside, I think your stance is the „vindictive vegan“ approach. While I‘m a newly found fan of veganism, I strongly dislike the „you’re either with us or against us“ approach.
I personally run a matrix server (which is foss, even if it sounds like its second class foss to you) and have it bridged to discord, whatsapp and signal. Why? Because that helps me convert people.
Their reasons for joining matrix:
- You can use one app (fluffychat in my case) instead of four apps
- People on the other platforms miss out if the bridge goes down which shows them its matrix first. With mautrix bridges, the bridge very rarely goes down btw
- their chats will be accessible for them forever if they wish, with backups they can take whenever they like
- no chance the EU breaks their encryption
- no chance for discord, meta or anyone else to sell their data (of course not in the bridged room)
I think there are better albeit more manipulative ways to get people to convert instead of punching them on the nose. Certain matrix only rooms do help, provided they have no equivalent on the other side.
Anyway, have a good one.
The post already explains in painstaking detail why network effect requires us to adopt extreme measures (which you mischaracterize as “you’re either with us or against us”). It’s the nature of the conflict, and free software advocates must either recognize it, or continue to suffer the dominance of proprietary software.
The issues with Matrix are perhaps better explained by others, elsewhere.
Thats a lot of text to say „I‘m not interested in debate.“
I think its the wrong platform if you just want to push your ideas and takes and cant accept different opinions. A blog would be more fitting in that case.
And again, have a good one.
I felt strong aversion and irritation throughout, thinking they were unnecessarily making enemies.
They certainly have an extreme view and goal. And are personally invested to the point of seeing fellow collaborators on FOSS as enemies(?) now.
Putting up barriers through segmentation and alternative tech creates silos. To reach new people I don’t think we can get around meeting users where they are and what they are familiar with.
Bring value through FOSS, and hint and nudge them. If you meet them where they are and bring them to your software it’s already one more than none. You don’t need to get them to make a huge leap into a whole ecosystem of alternative software at once.
Their categorical dismissal of other’s opinions or priorities certainly felt irritating to me. Maybe they care more about FOSS license than UX or features, but why is that the only correct view in their eyes? Blind users may not even be able to use FOSS alternatives when they lack accessibility features or quality.
Even as a contributor to a project I don’t want to use a supportive side platform only for that when it’s annoying or cumbersome. I very well may just skip it, or leave as a contributor.
I would have been interested in the premise; why they think advocating and exclusively FOSS is the only correct view and thing to do. The lack of a strong basis also made all that followed more irritating.
I really disagree with the idea that a person using any software which costs money or is corporate controlled is ‘opposition’ to free software or other movements against capitalism in tech.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Where did you get the idea that I’m against software which “costs money or is corporate controlled”? All my objections are to proprietary software (whether on the client side or the server).
(I am against corporate-controlled platforms, but I haven’t mentioned that in the post at all…companies sooner or later mistreat users. I’ve linked to a number of examples at the end of the post.)
That said…perhaps you refer to my opposition to centralized platforms? Surely the anti-user characteristics of centralized platforms are well-known at this point?
Sorry, I think I misread a part of your post. My mind knee jerk subbed in a similar argument I hear a lot. I will be honest that much of your essay went over my head, but I think that unregulated capitalism is a bigger enemy than other users who are seen as doing something wrong with their personal choices. I think it’s good to encourage imperfect or incomplete adoption of positive things over all or nothing approaches. But i don’t know what xmpp is, so I could be off base here in what you’re actually talking about. Apologies
With respect for your writing, I couldn’t understand the argument against meeting people where they’re at. The wife approval factor is the tongue in cheek official benchmark for acceptance. It’s gentle wisdom that can be applied to all potential users, and I understand it to mean compromise is always needed unless your partner is also a FOSS advocate.
I love free software, but I come to it almost purely from a privacy perspective. And if privacy is the main goal, there is commercial software that doesn’t care about vacuuming up consumer data. So for some, including me, it’s only a question of risk - tolerance, appetite, and mitigation.
Admittedly I think I don’t yet understand the free software movement. My journey began with docker and self hosting some alternatives to big commercial software. There’s probably more need to explore why meeting users where they’re at is a good rule. Me as an example, I may have overlapping interests with free software but my motivations are different. Therefore the fundamental need for me to use a libre alternative to discord just isn’t there. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be able to appreciate libre more as I interacted with the software and community (regardless of the platform theyre talking on).
As I wrote in the post, “meeting people where they are” is how we get free software organizations which use proprietary platforms for everything. This mentality must be avoided if we want to move away from proprietary platforms.
