Is there an alternative? Can you set up your own server and it's free (as in beer)?
But if you are merely handling tens of thousands of users, no problem. And if you have the budget to handle millions of users, maybe you have the budget to pay development as well as operations staff?
ejabberd is a good place to start an xmpp chat service. Facebook messenger was built on it, WhatsApp was built on it, Riot Games chat was built on it. I'm sure there's others.
If you attract enough users, you might end up needing to modify it for your needs, but that's a nice problem to have. There's a fair amount of presentations at tech events with bits and pieces of infra knowledge from FB, WA, and I think Riot Games. Although some of that is fairly obsolete... You don't need to work as hard to scale Erlang today, the BEAM is a lot more scalable out of the box in 2025 than it was in 2011, and you can also have a single host with a lot more ram and compute today too.
And I believe the free software movement is lamenting that?
Maybe clear communication would work better? Use words in a meaning, people understand intuitivly?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a better alternative. (Libre is nice, but I think most people would probably get that worse, not better)
Obviously nothing is perfect, but this criticism doesn't make sense to me.
(That doesn't mean making beer is free, same as software, so I don't see the need to complicate simple things here)
and which english word would you suggest intuitively communicates the meaning of free as in free to modify and share? there isn't one because the concept itself is unfamiliar to most people.
If you add a free to use, I would agree. For me it has both meanings. And in your definition it is kind of implicated, but in others not necessarily.
" To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis."
The last part is bothering me. Because yes, de facto it means free as in beer. I don't have to pay money to download the source and run my own version, except paying for my infrastructure.
but it shouldn't, that's one of the problems. developers need to be paid. more and more projects are in trouble because of this expectation that i don't need to pay for libre software.
A "free dogs" sign at a dog shelter would indicate them giving them away for free (they usually don't intentionally). (And still your own cost of transporting etc)
A "free dogs" sign on a protestors slogan outside a dog breeding for food factory, probaly something different.
In context of software, free software creates the expection free of cost mostly. And by now slowly and slowly, also free to do what I want. Sort of. Because there is this ideological battle of what is more freedom, free also to comercialize again, or is more freedom to allow anything? And that battle and different definitions, is pretty confusing to outsiders. The GNU version I don't like for that reason.
"To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.” We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis."
It makes things confusing without need. Result is, outsiders don't help so much or want to get involved.
The whole point is that the phrase "free software" has nothing to do with money.
It almost seems like you want to make things simpler by just merging the two concepts. But that's fundamentally not what the movement is about.
But it does in reality.
HN generally does though, and that's why I said it here.
> Maybe clear communication would work better?
It was clear.