> For Matrix to be a success, we need to design it such that there can be contributions from others than New Vector.
What exactly do you think is stopping such contributions? It seems to me there is plenty of room for community involvement, it is simply a matter of the community doing it (which many have been of course, but there is also always more work to do and free skilled labor is not easy to come by in large quantities).
> Having at least a bunch of money in the foundation would reduce that risk, but New Vector seems to even be siphoning off that.
I'm not following. How does the foundation having money reduce this risk? In particular, how do you think the foundation would help prevent the "collapse" of matrix if they had more funding? If you ask me I'd think that funding developers would be a good way to do that, and as the primary force behind the reference implementations, wouldn't funding Element/New Vector be a good way to do that? Although I was under the impression that resources primarily flowed the opposite way, from Element to the Foundation, but I haven't kept close track so could be wrong...
In any case, I'd echo the original sentiment of this thread - as someone who joined their patreon back when it first started and still haven't left it, I don't really mind if they haven't documented for the public where exactly every penny went as long as it's going towards the people developing matrix. Yeah maybe not ideal, but given that the foundation has very little money to begin with I have a tough time faulting it. It would change things if they were bringing in millions, but when the community patreon is not even bringing in enough to hire a full time minimum wage employee in California, much less a developer, accountant, or lawyer, documenting the expenditure of a few pennies is pretty low on my priority list.
What exactly do you think is stopping such contributions? It seems to me there is plenty of room for community involvement, it is simply a matter of the community doing it (which many have been of course, but there is also always more work to do and free skilled labor is not easy to come by in large quantities).
> Having at least a bunch of money in the foundation would reduce that risk, but New Vector seems to even be siphoning off that.
I'm not following. How does the foundation having money reduce this risk? In particular, how do you think the foundation would help prevent the "collapse" of matrix if they had more funding? If you ask me I'd think that funding developers would be a good way to do that, and as the primary force behind the reference implementations, wouldn't funding Element/New Vector be a good way to do that? Although I was under the impression that resources primarily flowed the opposite way, from Element to the Foundation, but I haven't kept close track so could be wrong...
In any case, I'd echo the original sentiment of this thread - as someone who joined their patreon back when it first started and still haven't left it, I don't really mind if they haven't documented for the public where exactly every penny went as long as it's going towards the people developing matrix. Yeah maybe not ideal, but given that the foundation has very little money to begin with I have a tough time faulting it. It would change things if they were bringing in millions, but when the community patreon is not even bringing in enough to hire a full time minimum wage employee in California, much less a developer, accountant, or lawyer, documenting the expenditure of a few pennies is pretty low on my priority list.