#signal server is now officially closed source, making it de facto a worse-looking telegram.
The problem is not just an AGPL violation here, even though the license explicitly requires to show the code if you are providing a service on top of it. According to AGPL-3, if you are using the service you are the user. Good luck anyway submitting such a request to them at this point.
The actual problem is that #signal is no longer willing to publicly share the sources of their server platform, which is what #signalapp users criticized the most about others in the past, #telegram in particular.
@danielinux @Arcaik @mmu_man also, telegram had at least plausible explanation ("we were going to make server-side source code open from the start, but then we were tipped that a certain government is going to use them to set up their own surveilled messenger and block Telegram on its territory, so that people would not complain too loud because there is a government-managed alternative which is just as great but surveilled; and we had to scrap our plans").
I don't think there is any explanation from Signal?
What you are saying about signal server is true as long as you trust that they are doing things the way they tell you. (E.g. run a server that is similar to the sources they publish).
N.B.: I am not defending Telegram here, only saying that signal has become redundant now that they cannot claim server transparency anymore. On top of that, there is the unbearable attitude of its developers, who fight against decentralization (as a general concept), possibly on behalf of someone else leveraging on their charisma on a certain community, and strongly opposing to alternatives to G push notifications and playstore distribution. Even the telegram-gpl client is better than that.
@Arcaik @danielinux @mmu_man
1. Secret chats in Telegram are also end-to-end encrypted (and the protocol is open, the clients are open-source, there are third-party clients). Which did not stop Signal from criticizing Telegram for not having server-side code open, and promoting it as one of the key Signal advantages over Telegram.
2. Signal can collect metadata: who is talking to who, when, how often, and from what IP addresses. (Maybe phone numbers too?)
ITT: signal fans clutching the straws, nearly running out of arguments on why signal is still relevant.
