---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sam Lanning <sam@samlanning.com> Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2016 09:16:48 +0000 Subject: [whispersystems] Addressing Frustration in the Signal Community Hi All, I have noticed that there has been some amount of frustration present on this mailing list as of late, and I'd just like to address it as a an observer and member of the Signal Community. The popularity of Signal, and in particular the number of people who want to help get involved in the project, contribute, help influence the future of it etc... has been growing very impressively. We have just under 1000 people on this mailing list (967 at time of writing), multiple PRs and issues are being opened in the repos by newcomers each day, and we have prominent people in the security community (Edward Snowden, Various Tor People, George Torwell [1] etc...) constantly telling everyone to use Signal. It's clear why this is happening, Signal is the only project to have emerged that really has the potential to put a dent in mass surveillance since Tor, and I use the word "only" on purpose here; Yes there are a million different privacy apps / projects that have emerged in the last 4 years or so, and existing tools have been improved (we have the likes of Tox, Pond, Ricochet etc... And OTR and PGP are still going strong), but Signal has always put a very strong focus on Usability and User Adoption, and it's these things that have lead it to becoming as widely adopted as it is, and it's these things we need to continue to focus on more than anything until it becomes as popular as, for example, Whatsapp. This is why it has the potential to put a dent in MASS surveillance. But this is obvious to most of you, in fact it is probably these reasons that have got you so excited about the project, and why we have so many people getting involved in the development of Signal, and contributing in any which way they can. That being said, I feel that the community doesn't realise just how big it's growing, and how that contrasts with the size of the OWS team itself. I have so much respect for them, they are each being pulled in a thousand different directions: development, managing + reviewing contributions on github, responding to issues, responding to support tickets, addressing each of the feature requests that come in (and deciding which ones they can take on etc...), handling PR / marketing / social media, corresponding with large projects that want to get involved and increase growth that drastically change the requirements for the infrastructure, managing and growing the infrastructure itself, managing finances and donations, general admin stuff, and of course... this mailing list. Go have a look at their website, to see how big their team is, and how many people are working on development (and also understand that Frederic Jacobs has recently moved on and the website is yet to be updated)... Then look again at this list of things that they need to handle among themselves. Also consider how amazingly Moxie has run a tight ship, keeping strict control of the direction of the project, and fighting to maintain that. It's this strict process that has lead Signal to where it is today. We can't let the project grow beyond this control, this strict direction that is vital to the steady, consistent, continual growth and success of the project, it can't be diluted... and yet growth is the single most important thing we're currently fighting for. This team is insane. So I ask you, please don't get frustrated, I know it can be difficult, and it can feel like you're shouting into the void, but we still need you, the community still needs everyone who's currently involved to stay as involved as they can and support one another. The whispersystems team reads each and every one of the emails that come through this mailing list, as insane as that may sound given the rest of their work load... they just don't have time to respond to everything, and they leave it up to us to do much of that. We need to work together, as a community, to help the OWS team grow this project into something even more fantastic then it is currently, rather than just increasing their workload, and taking their focus away from important development work and decision making. We each need to take a step back, and make calculated contributions, and help to make their life easier any way we can. So where, as a community, can we go from here... Well, the single most effective thing you could do, if you really want to make a difference, and are able to work in San Francisco, consider applying to work full time at OWS [2]. They need designers and developers alike. If like me, you're not in San Francisco, or even the USA, then you can continue to contribute online. Keep the morale up and continue doing what you're doing. Direct newcomers in the right directions (mailing list, issues, support, docs, the unofficial server support google group, etc...), and spread the word and try and get as many people to adopt Signal as possible. As a community, we can probably do with some better coordination as to what each of us are doing, assigning ourselves development tasks, doing code review, handling responding to people, discussing design / feature requests, working out as a community which features / work we feel are most critical etc... Feature requests, however well intentioned, do fill up this mailing list quite a bit, but there doesn't really seem like there is a proper (public) home for them at the moment, issues should be focussed on bugs / minor feature requests only, and sending an email to this list sends it to almost 1000 people... not ideal. Perhaps there is the scope for some online space to handle / discuss feature requests / work in progress in an open manner? and perhaps allow the OWS team to be a little more transparent with the things they are currently working on etc... We could then also incorporate projects like the new windows phone initiative, and coordinate much more effectively? Anyway that's just food for thought, and probably best discussed another time. In the meantime, I'm probably going to write up some intro page for newcomers of the Signal community, to outline the landscape, and help direct their efforts. I'll post in here when that's done. Anyway, thanks for reading through this monster of an email! It was mostly a brain dump on my part. =) Oh! And make sure you watch the youtube video I linked below. Cheers, Sam --------- Links: [1]: https://youtu.be/c4EEa0HAqzQ?t=2m31s ^ watch this, really! [2]: https://whispersystems.org/workworkwork/