Thank you for sharing that information. It seems like the foundation has been slowly moving in the right direction. I may have written a bit too harshly in my previous comment. I have been checking in on the development of Matrix, the Foundation, and monitoring that Github issue for quite some time.
Questions:
What is the narrow set of programs Matrix.org maintains? Is Trust and Safety referring to moderating the Matrix.org homeserver?
Are there strategies that could offload some of the homeserver hosting/moderation burden to community home server operators?
Are there strategies that could make the Matrix Conf closer to break even or perhaps even revenue positive?
Most importantly, how is the foundation protected and independent of its commercial sponsors? Currently 1/2 of the foundation's "Guardians", its top governance board, are from a single commercial entity. (I am profoundly grateful to Element for their past and continued support of Matrix and its operations, but as we have witnessed in other open source communities, having a single commercial interest having too much control can be disastrous over the long term).
I really, really hope Matrix succeeds in the long term. I am absolutely rooting for it.
> What is the narrow set of programs Matrix.org maintains? Is Trust and Safety referring to moderating the Matrix.org homeserver?
Yes, the Foundation is currently:
- Running the matrix.org homeserver from a technical perspective (servers & services costs + SRE)
- Keeping the matrix.org homeserver free of spam. That's a notoriously difficult task on a tight budget but we're writing tools and working with contractors to get more efficient.
- Maintaining and running several bridges (to Slack, XMPP and several IRC networks)
- Maintaining the matrix.org website
- Working with the community to promote the most active/interesting projects in our weekly post This Week in Matrix and our YouTube show Matrix Live
- Organizing The Matrix Conference, FOSDEM, and contributing to several conferences
The Foundation is not developing server or client software. There is a SDK under the matrix-org/ umbrella for historical reasons but the Foundation doesn't contribute to it.
> Are there strategies that could offload some of the homeserver hosting/moderation burden to community home server operators?
> Are there strategies that could make the Matrix Conf closer to break even or perhaps even revenue positive?
There are two things we can do:
- Either get more sponsors to keep an event of this scale
- Or do some cost compression by doing a smaller scale event, being hosted in a university or some sponsors' offices for free, reducing the catering, etc.
It's probably going to be an act of balance. Make the event too modest, and you miss out on potential businesses, make the event too extravagant and you go bankrupt.
> how is the foundation protected and independent of its commercial sponsors?
Can you be more specific of the threats you're envisioning here?
> Currently 1/2 of the foundation's "Guardians", its top governance board, are from a single commercial entity.
Yes, there used to be 5 Guardians before one stepped down. The Guardians are looking for another 5th peer to replace her.
> I really, really hope Matrix succeeds in the long term. I am absolutely rooting for it.
Thank you for your support, and thanks for holding us accountable :)
>Can you be more specific of the threats you're envisioning here?
One open source founder who had complete control over the projects foundation appears to have used access to foundation resources against a commercial competitor- the case is currently in court, but the drama has already had a substantial negative impact on that community.
Some years ago, another open source founder who had great influence over the projects nonprofit removed a long time contributor from the project over commercial perception concerns, not due to a violation of the projects code of conduct- then repeatedly lied about the reason to the community (editing their own posts multiple times to try to cover it up), causing substantial harm to the project and community.
People aren't perfect, they will make mistakes, even without commercial interests. But the foundation, seeking to support all interests equally, can build confidence and security by spreading authority across interests (the Matrix Governing Board is a great step in that direction, but legally it seems like its role is advisory and subordinate to the Guardians, as it is not part of the governing documents of the organization).
Questions:
What is the narrow set of programs Matrix.org maintains? Is Trust and Safety referring to moderating the Matrix.org homeserver?
Are there strategies that could offload some of the homeserver hosting/moderation burden to community home server operators?
Are there strategies that could make the Matrix Conf closer to break even or perhaps even revenue positive?
Most importantly, how is the foundation protected and independent of its commercial sponsors? Currently 1/2 of the foundation's "Guardians", its top governance board, are from a single commercial entity. (I am profoundly grateful to Element for their past and continued support of Matrix and its operations, but as we have witnessed in other open source communities, having a single commercial interest having too much control can be disastrous over the long term).
I really, really hope Matrix succeeds in the long term. I am absolutely rooting for it.