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I see no good way out of this, if someone forks it and removes all that extra attack surface I guess Moxie will fight it, as he doesn't want many compatible clients.

And if the crypto features stays in there it will become another avenue for pump-and-dump schemes, so I can no longer recommend it to people without looking like a crypto hustler.

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Fight it? How?

Moxie has a history of being an asshole to anyone trying to make a third-party client. They're prohibited from using the OWS servers, which do not federate (so they couldn't talk to Signal users), and Moxie has attacked third-party software over trademark issues, too. Any Signal fork is likely to be DoA, thanks to Moxie's deliberate actions.

Not everyone agrees that protecting a brand and controlling who connects to and uses a service you run and pay for is "being an asshole".

Lots of people pretty readily made the choice to move from WhatsApp to Signal when the benefits became clear. There's nothing stopping anyone from forking the client/server and running their own network - if there are meaningful benefits to end users of the fork, there should be no problem picking up traction.

If you don't want people to be able to fork your product, make it proprietary. Don't pretend to be open source and then attack people for exercising the rights that development model affords them.

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