30 comments

  • q3k 6 hours ago

        diff --git a/server/channels/app/limits.go b/server/channels/app/limits.go
        index b13103898a..a8be8dd908 100644
        --- a/server/channels/app/limits.go
        +++ b/server/channels/app/limits.go
        @@ -36,17 +36,6 @@ func (a *App) GetServerLimits() (*model.ServerLimits, *model.AppError) {
                        limits.MaxUsersHardLimit = licenseUserLimit + int64(extraUsers)
                }
         
        -       // Check if license has post history limits and get the calculated timestamp
        -       if license != nil && license.Limits != nil && license.Limits.PostHistory > 0 {
        -               limits.PostHistoryLimit = license.Limits.PostHistory
        -               // Get the calculated timestamp of the last accessible post
        -               lastAccessibleTime, appErr := a.GetLastAccessiblePostTime()
        -               if appErr != nil {
        -                       return nil, appErr
        -               }
        -               limits.LastAccessiblePostTime = lastAccessibleTime
        -       }
        -
                activeUserCount, appErr := a.Srv().Store().User().Count(model.UserCountOptions{})
                if appErr != nil {
                        return nil, model.NewAppError("GetServerLimits", "app.limits.get_app_limits.user_count.store_error", nil, "", http.StatusInternalServerError).Wrap(appErr)
    • donohoe 3 hours ago
      Or just this:

        $ sed -i -E '/maxUsers(Hard)?Limit.*0$/s/$/_000/' channels/app/limits.go
      
      Source: https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/issues/34271#issuec...
      • q3k 3 hours ago
        This is a different limit.
    • compsciphd 3 hours ago
      could be more complicated than this. the easiest thing (to me) would be to midufy the License() function so that it sets the Limits "correctly", as these type of things can be in multiple places.
  • Zephilinox 6 hours ago
    so not only did they enforce a ridiculously small message limit, they also did it for the self-hosted version, and they did it without announcing it AND without a suitable migration path

    and still no one from that company has admitted to it being a mistake?

    very nice

    • protimewaster 6 hours ago
      In defense of them not admitting any kind of mistake, maybe it's not actually a mistake but instead a really well thought out, yet incredibly stupid, plan.
      • g947o 5 hours ago
        aka "it's a good idea to turn our productivity software into ransomware" plan
        • pixl97 4 hours ago
          Isn't that just the Oracle method?
          • BuildTheRobots 4 hours ago
            It works exceptionally well for Slack as we've seen over the years. Someone in your $group uses signs up for the free tier, gets people using it and then you've got to pay through the nose to access any history.
      • cwmoore 5 hours ago
        The distinction isn’t non-discriminating, but if it is then, what it is, I believe.
      • creshal 5 hours ago
        That'd be even more reason for them to have a solid PR plan prepared, to grind down opposition and gaslight everyone into giving up. Leaving all messaging about the issue to upset users is the worst way to handle it. Even just closing the issue would've been less damaging at this point.
    • PunchyHamster 37 minutes ago
      We migrated off them when they removed the license tier (there was cheaper self hosted tier that had LDAP feature we needed, and we really only got the enterprise version for) and essentially forced everyone to tier above.
      • SubiculumCode 20 minutes ago
        Where did you migrate to, if I may ask? And has it worked out?
        • nixgeek 11 minutes ago
          Discord. It’s not self-hosted but it currently works fine for my needs. I guess if they start charging $15/mo per user we’ll all migrate again.
    • AmazingTurtle 3 hours ago
      Well they announced it in their v11 release. They stated that you may stay on v10 for 12 months (EOL) and otherwise proceed with non-profit etc.

      Classic rug pull though

    • this_user 3 hours ago
      Because it is almost certainly not a mistake. They also removed support for SSO via GitLab in the Community Edition in v11, which was the only SSO option still supported by the OSS version. They are pretty obviously trying to push users towards the paid plans.
    • Vespasian 5 hours ago
      Yeah I'm mostly confused about their lack of communication.

      If they want to do that then, as every corporate "open source", they are free to do so but why not communicate that at least in the release post?

      Any potential free user who would consider going paid will now be starting off their relationship negatively.

      Really weird strategy.

    • brandensilva 1 hour ago
      If this was intentional I'm going to uninstall it and encourage people never to use it. This is ridiculous.
    • ekianjo 5 hours ago
      what license do they use? If a true FOSS license it's time to fork...
  • carolosf 6 hours ago
    I used to use Mattermost. Highly recommend looking at Zulip as an alternative. (It’s my favourite slack alternative and even better than Slack because it’s the best at managing distractions IMO. It also has an interesting history was acquired by Dropbox and then back from Dropbox I believe)
    • gtech1 4 hours ago
      I love Zulip too, use it daily, wrote some nice integrations for it. Never got why people preferred Mattermost over it
      • j45 55 minutes ago
        Hope Zulip's discoverability improves.
    • paper2d 4 hours ago
      Zulip too has similar restrictions even on their self hosted plans. SAML/LDAP is behind paywall too.
      • bayindirh 4 hours ago
        Just looked to their self hosted plans:

            - No limitation on search, members, etc.
            - 10 user limit for mobile notifications, can be relaxed via community (for non-profits, FOSS projects, etc.)
            - SAML/LDAP *support* is available, you can configure it. They won't provide answers to your questions.
            - Actually, all Zulip features are enabled sans Mobile Notifications, but for most of them, you're on your own. If you know what you're doing, it's not a problem, I assume.
        
        IOW, for self-hosted plans, you pay for support, not the software. a-la early RedHat model.

        Ref: https://zulip.com/plans/#self-hosted-sponsorships

      • Valodim 3 hours ago
        This is false, SAML and LDAP are available. Zulip self hosted has all features with no restrictions, except for mobile notifications which require a subscription for $3.50/u/m (unless you are less than 10 users or are not a non-profit of any kind)
        • zukzuk 3 hours ago
          It’s a bit odd though that Zulip charge $ for mobile notifications but still don’t have basic end-to-end encryption for those push notifications .
          • PunchyHamster 36 minutes ago
            It's a mix of "because they can" and "because they need to maintain infrastructure for mobile push".
          • Valodim 3 hours ago
            The feature is deployed in the server, mobile clients are still pending the release iinm. But it's coming.
        • RobotToaster 3 hours ago
          > unless you are less than 10 users or are not a non-profit of any kind

          They only give free accounts to non-profits with zero paid staff.

      • gtech1 4 hours ago
        What restrictions have you hit ?
        • paper2d 4 hours ago
          Seeing their pricing page, mobile notifications for upto 10 users is too less.
          • gtech1 4 hours ago
            But you mentioned similar...this is a discussion about message limits (and saml ?). Those are free for self hosted.

            Push uses _their_ services. That's why it costs $$$. But you can build your own apns endpoint and plug into that at that volume

            • emptysongglass 1 hour ago
              Push costs pennies. It's an arbitrary restriction.
  • shaky-carrousel 6 hours ago
    You can switch to https://framagit.org/framasoft/framateam/mostlymatter which doesn't have the user limit crap.
    • codefined 3 hours ago
      We use Docker to deploy, do you know of any public forks that do Docker builds?
  • garganzol 4 hours ago
    Bait contributors by a FOSS-like model, then switch the mode to sell the results of their contributions without paying them back. What a classic.
  • constantius 6 hours ago
    They're now a defense contractor, the copy on their website sounds like military cosplaying.... Probably chasing the stupid profits of Anduril and Palantir, and doing the old open source rugpull in the process.

    Zulip (for Slack) and Wekan (for Trello) are good replacements, save yourself the ethical and technical worries.

    https://zulip.com/

    https://wekan.github.io/

    • sallveburrpi 5 hours ago
      So so weird that we live in a timeline where Anduril and Palantir are military contractors of the US and other governments.

      I know it’s somewhat of a tired observation by now but I still wonder every time how badly you have to misread LOTR to name your company after the witch kings cursed surveillance artefacts.

      I wonder when the first weapons manufacturing company calls themselves Angmar or Uruk-hai.

      The names are really dope though I have to give them that…

      • PunchyHamster 33 minutes ago
        > I know it’s somewhat of a tired observation by now but I still wonder every time how badly you have to misread LOTR to name your company after the witch kings cursed surveillance artefacts.

        Have you considered that it is not "misread", they just see themselves on Saruman side ?

      • ahartmetz 4 hours ago
        "Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus"

        It was a Mike Judge type joke, aka ha-ha only serious.

      • erulabs 10 minutes ago
        Not to be "that guy" but Anduril is Aragorn's sword and is like, the most good-guy good-thing that could ever be fantasized about. It's used to defeat Sauron. And the Palantir stones are not "the bad guys tool", they were made by the Elves in ancient history and a few of them wound up in the bad guys hands. Misread LOTR indeed!
      • thatguy0900 1 hour ago
        I don't think they misread it, I think they just liked sauron more than the good guys
      • swiftcoder 4 hours ago
        > I wonder when the first weapons manufacturing company calls themselves Angmar or Uruk-hai.

        Luckily/unluckily, AngMar is one of those shady medical subcontracting firms instead...

        • sallveburrpi 4 hours ago
          I guess they are named after the founders (Angie and Mark) - but still an eerie coincidence…
    • bayindirh 4 hours ago
      I just read the copy on Mattermost's website. I believe you can't go more cringe than this for a group chat application.

      Wonder whether they do weapons integrations for this. Urgh.

    • ekjhgkejhgk 5 hours ago
      On Kanban, I would instead suggest cryptpad.fr.

      Crucially, it's end to end encrypted.

      You can self-host it, or pay for having it hosted (or use the hosted free tier).

      Has other things in addition to kanban.

      I got a 1 yr account.

      https://cryptpad.fr/

      • PunchyHamster 32 minutes ago
        > Crucially, it's end to end encrypted.

        I don't think it's all that crucial for something that at most gets some ticket descriptions on it

    • firesteelrain 6 hours ago
      mIRC was used during GWOT for military. They just didn’t openly advertise it.

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5147321

      • constantius 6 hours ago
        Knives were too, and yet I'm not calling people to use forks instead. There is a difference between military contractors and generic tools.

        Edit: sorry, hotheaded reply. I assume you mean that the creator of mIRC was encouraging it (though it's not mentioned anywhere). I still.stand by my analogy, but I see your point given your assumption.

        • firesteelrain 5 hours ago
          > I assume you mean that the creator of mIRC was aware of it and encouraging it.

          Like most licensed software, it was likely licensed by “US Government” or “Department of Defense”. Plus, it was openly written about back in the day. It was well known. No clauses in their licensing to prevent its use for those purposes.

          Comparing to Mattermost and amplifying the original comment, Mattermost website is openly associating with PlatformOne.

      • huhtenberg 6 hours ago
        What's GWOT?
    • notesinthefield 4 hours ago
      Ive seen MM instances across defense dev teams for quite a while specifically to avoid Teams bs in the air force, gov teams does not like mixing with other orgs. Now it seems they’re actually going for contracts and Ill bet great money are mostly funded by USAF. Im very, very surprised.
    • mystraline 4 hours ago
      Unsurprising, given that the CEO of Element/Matrix is also selling and creating primarily to that end as well.

      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46379589

  • bramhaag 6 hours ago
    Mattermost is MIT licensed. What is stopping anyone from removing this restriction?
    • giancarlostoro 5 minutes ago
      No. The binaries they prepackage for you are MIT. If you want the source it is AGPL or you pay for a proprietary license.
    • mort96 6 hours ago
      Maintaining your own fork is a ton of work. Even if it's just routinely rebasing on upstream and maintaining your own upgrade infrastructure and doing releases, that's far from trivial.

      The open source community really needs to stop with the "just fork it" mindset.

      • PunchyHamster 29 minutes ago
        > The open source community really needs to stop with the "just fork it" mindset.

        It's right mindset. Just not applicable to projects that are made majority by the company because none of the contributors will move so it's essentially trying to make new team from scratch.

      • jsiepkes 3 hours ago
        > Maintaining your own fork is a ton of work. Even if it's just routinely rebasing on upstream and maintaining your own upgrade infrastructure and doing releases, that's far from trivial.

        Well I did it for Mattermost and for some other software as well. Sure, its some work, but it's not "a ton" of work and may not be "trivial" but it is also not "far" from trivial.

        Do it like Linux maintainers maintain a ton of patched RPM's, deb's, etc. Just keep a patch in GIT. For every release of Mattermost you do a GIT clone, apply your patch and build it. Most of the time the patch will just apply cleanly. Sometimes you need to make a few adjustments, you make them and put them in GIT. There is no extensive release management or anything. You just build a patched version for every released version.

      • derefr 6 hours ago
        I don't think the implication is that anyone as an individual would fork it.

        I think the implication is that some other interested org could very easily step in and assume the role that the Mattermost org was in, and everyone would very eagerly switch and leave Mattermost itself speaking to an empty room.

        • whatevaa 5 hours ago
          Still need someone to do unthankful work, in which many are not interested, naturally.
          • nlitened 4 hours ago
            You actually don't have to maintain the fork and/or update to latest version if you don't need new features.
            • mort96 1 hour ago
              You don't have to maintain the fork and/or update to the latest version if you don't need new features or security fixes.

              Most people want security fixes.

            • regularfry 1 hour ago
              Or patched vulnerabilities.
      • yread 5 hours ago
        I use MM for about a year. Forking it would be a major undertaking as the number of vulnerabilities for which you would need to backport is quite high like 5 a month?). Last time they removed features from free (group calls in v10) there was a lot of grumbling but thats it.
      • integralid 6 hours ago
        >The open source community really needs to stop with the "just fork it" mindset.

        The open source community really needs to stop with the "just do everything i want for free" mindset.

        I mean, open source does not mean you're entitled to free support, and free in free software is not about money. I think people depend too much on those projects and then act entitled.

        Of course the open source bait and switch done by companies is a shitty behavior worth calling out, but the companies exist to earn money and at this point this can be expected.

        • mort96 5 hours ago
          I don't think I've expressed a "just do everything I want for free" mindset. In fact, I'm pushing against the idea that someone should just fork Mattermost and maintain that fork for free.

          I do think this development represents a bait and switch though.

        • gsich 4 hours ago
          From my observation Mattermost is not a software you buy "support" for. It either works and is self-manageable or you use something else. I guess Mattermost (as in the company) saw that too and now uses shitty practices to coerece people into buying it.
        • fn-mote 4 hours ago
          > Of course the open source bait and switch done by companies is a shitty behavior worth calling out,

          Yes, that’s what we are doing here.

          > but the companies exist to earn money and at this point this can be expected.

          Expected != ethical. Also not a necessary, logical outcome.

          What is legitimately expected is a pro version that has more corporate features. We’re not talking about $Xx/user/mo to enable SSO here, though.

    • Y_Y 6 hours ago
      https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/issues/34271#issuec...

      Wanting to use Mattermost's binaries rather than building from source?

      Re licensing see: https://isitreallyfoss.com/projects/mattermost/

    • LudwigNagasena 6 hours ago
      It’s not open source, it’s “open core” SaaS.
    • jstummbillig 6 hours ago
      I don't know, but that seems somewhat beside the point. The restriction obviously was not added to test peoples ability to remove it.
    • compsciphd 5 hours ago
      glancing through the code, it doesn't seem like it be that hard to remove limitations such as this. PostHistoryLimit/postHistoryLimit interpreted from License Limits. a little poke here and there and I'd guess the limitations would disappear.
    • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
      The time and energy that it takes to do it and build it, and then make it easy for current users to move their automatic updates to the fork, then maintaining it etc.
    • csomar 6 hours ago
      Nothing. Open Source is dying. The model to finance open source work (well-off suburban american dads or as a portfolio show off) no longer apply. The old generation that believed in this model is retiring and for the new generation it pays better to "network", leet code, or spam your resume to thousands of employers.

      Now couple that with the fact that supply-chain control is profitable (legally or illegally); I think the next 5-10 years will be interesting.

      • Ekaros 1 hour ago
        There never was a model to fund open source. At least outside largest and most wide spread codebases. I think it is that reality is finally hitting. Free money has run out and now software must stand as either community efforts, wide enough used foundations or forced support.
      • Zacharias030 2 hours ago
        almost seems like there is now too much money in software. the old times felt like computer science was mostly a science.
    • J-Kuhn 6 hours ago
      The compiled binary is.

      The source code is... AGPL licensed? But not the admin tools. They seem to be licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

      --------

      Yeah, good luck. Contact your lawyer.

      • true_religion 6 hours ago
        AGPL and Apache are both open source licenses. So I’m not getting what the confusion would be as an end user, who won’t be modifying the software or packaging it for sale.
      • dns_snek 2 hours ago
        > Yeah, good luck. Contact your lawyer.

        Why? The intent seems pretty clear and they're legally allowed to do this because all contributors signed a CLA.

      • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
        Explain please. This interests me and I'm extremely curious about what you mean.
        • J-Kuhn 26 minutes ago
          Combining source code under different licenses into one product is a nightmare.

          You have to follow the AGPL "no additional restrictions" clause while also following the Apache License, and the Apache License might have require you to follow additional restrictions.

  • p2detar 5 hours ago
    This seems to be only for the Enterprise edition. The "free" Team edition should not have this limit:

    https://github.com/mattermost/mattermost/issues/34271#issuec...

    Also one of the comments:

    > Would be a shame if someone with too much time on their hands dug into the binary and added a few zeroes to the message limit

    Can this be done via some binary-patch tool? Really curious. It would save recompile efforts.

    edit: link

    edit 2: I just realized, their Ubuntu repository only contains the Enterprise edition labeled "Free edition". This is really confusing. I does look like entishitification has started long ago: https://docs.mattermost.com/deployment-guide/server/deploy-l...

    • bmacho 5 hours ago
      Is it legal to "patch" (remove a restriction) the binary?
  • lousken 5 hours ago
    For all the bad press element/matrix has been getting, I am happy that at least I don't have to deal with this as well.
  • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
    What's mattermost? People in the GitHub comments say "I just need messages" but there's lots of self hosted messaging apps/servers, no? XMPP comes to mind immediately.
    • firesteelrain 6 hours ago
      It’s an IRC-like, group chat for Corporate that works in airgap. When HipChat was obsoleted, then Mattermost took over.
    • figmert 6 hours ago
      It's an open source alternative to Slack
    • loeg 1 hour ago
      My employer migrated to it from IRC, for example.
  • october8140 4 hours ago
    GitHub needs a better flag for license stuff like this. Open Source doesn’t mean what it used to.
    • xandrius 2 minutes ago
      Open source doesn't imply no limitations.
  • DrStartup 3 hours ago
    The good ole VC OS Rug Pull. Classic.

    It’d be nice if Mozilla (or a similar foundation) could create a baseline OS platform for a business communications suite.

    • PunchyHamster 27 minutes ago
      I'd be nice for anyone but Mozilla to do it. They can barely keep FF competitive
  • throw-the-towel 4 hours ago
    Years ago I used to work at a company that used Mattermost for internal chats.

    Being laid off from there was sad, but at least I didn't have to use Mattermost anymore.

  • jamescontrol 6 hours ago
    I looked at it for company chat and data, but those weird limits in functionality making in unusable was just too much, so them doing this too is not really surprising. Are they low on money?
  • acheong08 6 hours ago
    It's another level of insane to put hard limits for self hosted open source software. I'm surprised so few people in the thread have just changed the source code and build it themselves.
    • dotancohen 6 hours ago
      They probably found performance problems at certain limits and "resolved" the problem with a hard coded limit.
      • danielheath 6 hours ago
        ... a hard coded limit... for self-hosted software... which is removed for paying users?
  • cantalopes 6 hours ago
    Thank god i didn't convince my team to selfhost mattermost instead of using slack
    • adastra22 5 hours ago
      … slack is exactly the same, except without even the ability to self-host?
  • steanne 2 hours ago
    this is not the only such recent change. can't make voice calls in public channels anymore either, only pms.
  • petcat 5 hours ago
    Am I understanding this right that the main complainant in that issue thread is an IT company that wants to resell the (free) version of Mattermost software and is now complaining that they have to pay?

    At first they tried to say that "we're a school" and then when the MM rep said they have an Education license, they admitted that they are not actually a school, but rather a consulting company that is gouging schools by overcharging for open source software.

    • lexicality 5 hours ago
      > an IT company that wants to resell the (free) version of Mattermost software and is now complaining that they have to pay?

      A user that was following the letter of the license and has suddenly had their access to the software restricted without warning.

      Open source software means people are entirely within their rights to sell it to others, perhaps creating value by providing the warranty that all licenses expressly disclaim.

      • petcat 4 hours ago
        I'm aware of what open source software is.

        And there are 3 things that you can do when in this situation:

        1) Pay the fee, if that is what is required for it to continue to be easy for you to re-sell the software.

        2) Fork the project, remove the restrictions, and maintain it yourself.

        3) Stop using the software.

        All of those are perfectly within the spirit of FOSS.

    • margalabargala 3 hours ago
      The user who is the IT company is not the same user who started the thread and claims to be a school.
    • hluska 22 minutes ago
      I’m having a lot of trouble with your comment. The word ‘resell’ doesn’t appear anywhere in the issue - there is absolutely nothing about reselling it anywhere within the linked issue.
    • sergiotapia 5 hours ago
      No, you are not understanding this right.

      It's about rug pulling your users and cutting them off at the knees. I don't use mattermost but read the github thread in it's entirety.

      • toxik 4 hours ago
        The good brand of open-source software is basically being abused to do basic rug pull schemes. Sad.
  • gus_massa 6 hours ago
    From the readme.md

    > A new compiled version is released under an MIT license every month on the 16th.

    What does than even mean? Is it equivalent to what we use to call "freeware". Is it legal to modify the binaries?

    • Ekaros 1 hour ago
      Broadly. You can do anything you want with MIT licensed software as long as you include the copyright and warranty notice.

      I suppose with "freeware" technically you could be prevent from redistributing or selling it. As there is no hard definition on that term.

    • dotancohen 6 hours ago
      I'm not sure about MIT, but the GNU license specifically requires the application licensed to be available in source code (human readable and editable form or similar verbiage).
      • tom_ 6 hours ago
        The MIT licence does not require this.
        • ekjhgkejhgk 5 hours ago
          I'm not an expert, but I very much doubt this.

          The FSF calls it a "free license" [1] and I don't think they would if they didn't make the source code available.

          Source code available is necessary but not sufficient for Free software, see [2]

          > Freedoms 1 and 3 require source code to be available because studying and modifying software without its source code can range from highly impractical to nearly impossible.

          [1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#Expat

          [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

          EDIT Oh sorry, you mean for the LICENSE to be available. Never mind then.

          • PunchyHamster 25 minutes ago
            And you're entirely wrong. MIT just require attribution, not giving the source code.

            That is why companies and corpo programmers LOVE BSD/MIT code, they can freely steal I mean use it in their for-profit products without giving anything back but some bit of text hidden in about box

          • adastra22 5 hours ago
            You can compile MIT software and distribute the binary while saying “fuck you” to anyone who asks for the source.

            You are thinking of copyleft (e.g. GPL)

            • ekjhgkejhgk 5 hours ago
              If that were true, the FSF wouldn't call it a free license.
              • lelanthran 29 minutes ago
                > If that were true, the FSF wouldn't call it a free license.

                It is true; the license gives you the source, to do with as you please, including closing it off.

                Famously, Microsoft included BSD licensed tools in Windows since the 90s and did not distribute the sources!

                And that is completely legal. If you want to force the users to distribute their changes to your open source product when they are redistributing the product, you need to use GPL.

              • fn-mote 4 hours ago
                You should have linked the MIT License on Wikipedia (or anywhere else) instead of Free Software.

                The license is only three paragraphs long. You can see it does not contain text supporting your claim.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

                • ekjhgkejhgk 4 hours ago
                  Well, I'm confused.
                  • lelanthran 27 minutes ago
                    It's actually very simple:

                    MIT/BSD licenses are pro-business - any business can take the product, change a few lines and redistribute the result without making their changes available.

                    GPL is pro-user - anyone who gets the source, makes changes, and then redistributes the result has to make their changed sources available as well.

                  • spauldo 3 hours ago
                    The FSF has written extensively on why (in their opinion) you should prefer copyleft licenses over non-copyleft licenses, but they don't require a license to be copyleft in order to be considered free. It's worth spending a bit of time on their site to understand their point of view. Just be careful not to drink too much of the Kool-Aid or you'll become one of those annoying people who never shut up about the GPL on forums.
                    • squigz 2 hours ago
                      Don't listen to spauldo, GP. Drink the delicious Kool Aid that is free software. Bring that joy to everyone else you find.
  • Zacharias030 3 hours ago
    can someone clarify the situation that self-hosted free (as in beer) community mattermosts are/will be in?
    • PunchyHamster 27 minutes ago
      They have been slowly removing features from it and this is another one removed
  • cletus 4 hours ago
    Story time. This has basically nothing to do with this post other than it involves a limit of 10,000 but hey, it's Christmas and I want to tell a story.

    I used to work for Facebook and many years ago people noticed you couldn't block certain people but the one that was most public was Mark Zuckerberg. It would just say it failed or something like that. And people would assign malice or just intent to it. But the truth was much funnier.

    Most data on Facebook is stored in a custom graph database that basically only has 2 tables that are sharded across thousands of MySQL instances but most almost always accessed via an in-memory write-through cache, also custom. It's not quite a cache because it has functionality built on top of the database that accessing directly wouldn't have.

    So a person is an object and following them is an edge. Importantly, many such edges were one-way so it was easy to query if person A followed B but much more difficult to query all the followers of B. This was by design to avoid hot shards.

    So I lied when I said there were 2 tables. There was a third that was an optimization that counted certain edges. So if you see "10.7M people follow X" or "136K people like this", it's reading a count, not doing a query.

    Now there was another optimization here: only the last 10,000 of (object ID,edge type) were in memory. You generally wanted to avoid dealing with anything older than that because you'd start hitting the database and that was generally a huge problem on a large, live query or update. As an example, it was easy to query the last 10,000 people or pages you've followed.

    You should be able to see where this is going. All that had happened was 10,000 people had blocked Mark Zuckerberg. Blocks were another kind of edge that was bidirectional (IIRC). The system just wasn't designed for a situation where more than 10,000 people wanted to block someone.

    This got fixed many years ago because somebody came along and build a separate system to handle blocking that didn't have the 10,000 limit. I don't know the implementation details but I can guess. There was a separate piece of reverse-indexing infrastructure for doing queries on one-way edges. I suspect that was used.

    Anyway, I love this story because it's funny how a series of technical decisions can lead to behavior and a perception nobody intended.

    • Zacharias030 1 minute ago
      Merry Christmas! This is why I like hackernews.
  • liviux 4 hours ago
    Another project bites the dust. They will return after a fork will get way popular. In time
  • gmerc 6 hours ago
    Did they take VC money?
    • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
      I think that the photos they have on their front page should be enough to tell you who is their target market.

      I've invented this heuristic: if the page that describes the project uses the word "solutions", then they'll attempt to use "open source" to obtain free labour, but will distribute the revenues only amongst those people who actually have control.

      • dotancohen 6 hours ago
        Black businesswomen? Firefighters? White servicemen? White software developers?

        I really don't get what you're implying. I don't see any problem with the photos on the mattermost front page.

        https://mattermost.com/

        • stavros 6 hours ago
          I don't think the GP implied anything about race? The photos I see are war frigates, power plants, some sort of military operations center, and commercial airliners.

          Think "enterprise", rather than "racism".

          • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
            Exactly. But some people think everyone else is racist. Those people's skin colour didn't even register.
            • dotancohen 5 hours ago
              I left every option open for OP to explain. I personally couldn't care less what skin colour are in any of the photos. Not a single one of them match my own.
        • bfkwlfkjf 6 hours ago
          Everything you mentioned in that list in people who can pay. As opposed to people who code and they use what they code, and furthermore share it with other people who also code and use what they code.

          It's "open source" so that they save on developer costs, not for ideological reasons, and you can tell from the photos on their front page - that's what I was implying.

          • xhkkffbf 6 hours ago
            I think this is kind of cynical. I often adopt open source tools because I want to avoid vendor lockin. And so do many. It's not like I say, "Wow. Another code base to dive into and spend hours trying to understand." Nope. I just want the assurance that I can do it if I ever need to do so.
        • notarobot123 6 hours ago
          Governmental organizations and corporate firms is the vibe (or maybe that was obvious and you're just trolling).

          I think the point was that open source hasn't often been supported by companies serving these kinds of markets and the interests of the broader community are often sidelined.

    • shafyy 6 hours ago
      • wltr 2 hours ago
        Waiting for the thread to be marked as [flagged] and then [dead] then, I assume.
        • GaryBluto 1 hour ago
          Has HN ever showed bias in this way? I can't think of any occasions.
  • yunohn 2 hours ago
    Y’know I’m starting to think that every single migration from paid to free software, will end up in the same cycle of becoming feature-locked. People time and again fail to understand that you need to financially support projects you use for sustainable futures. But alas, here we are…
  • wltr 2 hours ago
    I was about to propose to deploy this as a company chat to my current boss, the self-hosted edition. So, is this still the best option (considering this can be reverted back, I assume), or should I just seek elsewhere now?
    • xvilka 2 hours ago
      Zulip is recommended by many here. Their mobile app is atrocious though...
      • wltr 2 hours ago
        10 users for mobile notifications is a non-starter for me. I’d rather host XMPP then, I guess. Or a Matrix server, it seems like it allows the mobile notifications.
  • yard2010 5 hours ago
    So, they limit the access to data on self hosted instances after upgrade? Sounds like a ransomware with extra steps.

    Enshitification ensues.

  • ptman 3 hours ago
    Use matrix instead. Or zulip. Or xmpp. Or IRC
  • micromacrofoot 4 hours ago
    This seems like a poorly hashed out plan, but I do have some sympathy...

    in the face of competitors with many more employees and seemingly endless piles of VC money, how do open source projects like this fund themselves? What could Mattermost do instead? Should they take more money and race everyone towards the same cliff?

    Are projects like this doomed to a small niche of people who understand the implications (and meanwhile can't contribute enough to ensure development keeps pace)?

    Everyone else is just going to keep using Slack, and arguably outside of these niche concerns, it's a better funded and higher quality product.

    • PunchyHamster 20 minutes ago
      It's not really open source project. They always gated a bunch of features, require CLA (so even if someone does contribute, boom, your code is theirs and they will probably close it down behind enterprise license if it is useful enough), and have pretty complex licensing scheme https://docs.mattermost.com/product-overview/faq-mattermost-...

      > Everyone else is just going to keep using Slack, and arguably outside of these niche concerns, it's a better funded and higher quality product.

      They had niche when their lite enterprise license (just basic LDAP and some other small features) was $2.5 per user.

      Now they are basically on slack pricing, why would anyone bother...

  • sapphirebreeze 3 hours ago
    [dead]
  • gjsman-1000 6 hours ago
    > “Mattermost only got where it is today because of the open-source community.”

    Not really? FOSS communities overestimate their importance on a daily basis.

    Case in point: Linux. 90%+ of commits were corporate sponsored… in 2004. The pure community member does almost nothing of importance for Linux anymore; or any of these projects.

    • PunchyHamster 18 minutes ago
      It's because you misunderstood the reason - they OSS part got them some free advertising and users that gave it a try and got on the subscription.

      Now VC's want their money so gotta make people that can't be bothered to get off it to migrate to paid plan