Fwd: [whispersystems] Addressing Frustration in the Signal Community

[coderman]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sam Lanning <sam at 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/