[liberationtech] Heml.is - "The Beautiful & Secure Messenger"

[Travis McCrea]

I would point to Texutal* as a model that does this and works, they release their source code -- but you have to compile it yourself. I don't have an IDE on my computer anymore, and probably would be too lazy to go through the hassle of trying to compile their program than to just give them $3 or whatever for the app. 


*note - I am my own argument against this, I run http://frextualapp.com - a compiled version of textual available freely but mine hasn't been updated in like 6 months, I was trying to keep it up to date but haven't really had time… which is why people should just pay for textual. Plus their app has an update feature which mine does not.

On 2013-07-10, at 9:07 AM, Nick wrote:

>>> noone said it would be closed source. That's peoples guess. Like, your guess, I guess.
> 
> According to their twitter account, the answer is "maybe":
> https://twitter.com/HemlisMessenger/statuses/354927721337470976
> 
> Peter Sunde (one of the people behind it) said "eventually", but
> in my experience promises like that tend to be broken:
> https://twitter.com/brokep/status/354608029242626048
> 
>> and the feature 'unlocking' aspect of the project - to be indication of a
>> proprietary code base.
> 
> Frankly I can't see how they could get the "feature unlock" funding
> stuff to work well if it's proper open source. As I'd expect people
> to fork it to remove such antifeatures. It's a pity, as several new
> funding models have been successful recently which are compatible with
> free software, but this doesn't look to be one of them.
> --
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