* 2014: Matrix core team creates Matrix, writes Synapse and other implementations, starts writing the Matrix spec
* 2017: Matrix core team wants to be able to focus on this exclusively as their dayjob; creates New Vector (aka Element) to fund their work.
* 2018: Matrix core team establishes the Foundation as a neutral custodian of the standard on behalf of everyone in the ecosystem. Element transfers all its core Matrix IP to the Foundation, and (uniquely) continues to donate its future contributions to the Foundation, hoping that by letting the whole ecosystem build on top, including proprietary forks, Matrix will spread as far and wide as possible to the benefit of everyone, and Element will make enough $ selling Matrix hosting/distributions to keep hiring the core team to work on Matrix.
* 2022: Matrix has spread far and wide, but turns out that in the commercial space, huge companies who bear no cost for supporting the Matrix ecosystem whatsoever discover they can sell proprietary forks for many $. Meanwhile, Element spends its life funnelling most of its time & energy into doing core Matrix ecosystem work, and it turns out that trying to compete with the big guys while all your energy is going into the commons doesn't work.
* 2023: Element decides it can't afford to contribute as Apache any more, and switches to AGPL + CLA, thus requiring the big guys to either opensource their proprietary forks as AGPL or arrange a paid license from Element. Yes, this means that contributors to Synapse will need to sign a CLA to Element, and it's depressing if this hinders community contributions, but it's the least worst solution we can see.
What, exactly, are you talking about here, Matthew?
I already mentioned a bunch of them at the top of https://matrix.org/blog/2022/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-update... when trying to get folks to donate to the Foundation. While this helped with new players, it didn't help with existing ones (although one did send us $500). So switching to AGPL is the next line of recourse.
Another thing not clear from that post was the layoffs- were those layoffs at the Foundation, or Element corp? Either way it was a loss to the Matrix community, for certain!
The layoffs were from Element; the Foundation has only a managing director as an employee (who started a few months ago). And yes, the layoffs have been a nightmarish loss for Matrix - as a result P2P Matrix, Third Room, Low Bandwidth Matrix and many other more ambitious projects are currently shelved.
The point of the licensing change is to try to break even and avoid further layoffs, by requiring third party commercial forks to contribute financially.
The amount of hate for doing so is astonishing, but hey.
y'all are trying to get this shit IETF standardized and cram Matrix interop through via DMA while tying down your reference implementation, think about how that looks. that code should be as permissive and easy to integrate with as possible! who wants to pay a protection racket to an organization who's proven itself this fickle?
sure sure, enclose dendrite and the Element product family, things you explicitly built for scaling the matrix.org server and "Element the product" but Synapse should always have been seen as a loss-leader, a hulking mass of Tornado code that says "here's how you could implement this standard and it works well enough for operators of small or medium sized communities but wouldn't it be nice if you did it this more sustainable/scalable way? give us a call"
It just shows to me a lack of creativity or courage and instead says "well we parted ways with our corporate sponsor a few years ago without enough of a business plan and now we're hungry"
Competitors can just take the open source parts of the matrix projects without contributing code or funding back.
As result, in a bid between Element and competitors, Element will lose because Element actually pays for maintaining these open source projects.
And where criteria like “trust and confidence” are too often cover for corruption and favoritism.
So I don’t see how someone acting in a different market had any bearing on their business at all. Unless they were indeed in that market, but that doesn’t seem clear to me at all from their messaging.