> In early 2018, Acton and Marlinspike announced the formation of the Signal Foundation, a nonprofit. Acton, the foundation’s chairman and sole member, seeded it with a no-interest, fifty-million-dollar loan.
additionally from Wikipedia:
> By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.
Better late than never. Never seems more typical.
The difference is that Signal is a walled garden and suddenly somebody pays for that.
To align sustained development and ongoing maintainance with a FLOS licence model.
Because the alternative is to have volunteers spending their evenings and weekends on hobby projects that sometimes grow way over their hobbyish status. Which is both scary and sad.
What's particularly odd is that, if they were they a private foundation, as Acton is a board member (who also appears to have sole power to determine board members), I think the loan itself would be a prohibited act of self-dealing.