The thing is, we are talking about the Beeper service here. Yes Matrix is good, yes Beeper bridges are good, but a closed source Beeper app is bad. That’s what the criticism is about, and it doesn’t help if you deflect that by arguing about all the other things they are doing.
You’re definitely right that people are a bit too doom-and-gloom about it, they did do a lot of good over the last few years!
But I also find it a bit odd that Beeper talks so much about the importance of open source in messaging, and then releases a closed source client without at least adressing the topic. Add the fact that they’ve been aquired by another company on the same day, and it starts to smell like another instance of openwashing.
derin@lemmy.beru.co 2 months ago
I disagree. Beeper’s client is meaningless, its the service being offered that has value.
If you don’t mind trusting a third party service with your Matrix instance + bridge hosting, use Beeper.
If you’re into OSS and owning your own tech stack, self host the whole thing.
At no point do you have to use their client for any reason.
shrugal@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The thing is, we are talking about the Beeper service here. Yes Matrix is good, yes Beeper bridges are good, but a closed source Beeper app is bad. That’s what the criticism is about, and it doesn’t help if you deflect that by arguing about all the other things they are doing.
derin@lemmy.beru.co 2 months ago
Fair point, if you’re just against the fact that they wrote a closed source client.
It’s frustrating that closed source software exists, but in this context I’m (personally) okay with it as it funds the development of free software.
shrugal@lemm.ee 2 months ago
You’re definitely right that people are a bit too doom-and-gloom about it, they did do a lot of good over the last few years!
But I also find it a bit odd that Beeper talks so much about the importance of open source in messaging, and then releases a closed source client without at least adressing the topic. Add the fact that they’ve been aquired by another company on the same day, and it starts to smell like another instance of openwashing.
Idk, we’ll have to see how it plays out I guess.