Signal isn't federated ^[1][2][3.1]^; it's decentralized ^[1][2][3.2]^. Though, for all practical purposes, I would generally argue that it's centralized.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
"Signal (software)". Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-06T09:34Z. Accessed: 2025-02-1T09:30Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software).
- ¶"Architecture". ¶"Servers".
  
  Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal's messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users' public keys. […]
"Reflections: The ecosystem is moving". moxie0. Signal Blog. Published: 2016-05-10. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:40Z. https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/.
1. ¶5. to ¶"Stuck in time". ¶3-6
  
  One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all. […] [interoperable protocols] [have] taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. […] Early on, I thought we’d federate Signal once its velocity had subsided. Now I realize that things will probably never slow down, and if anything the velocity of the entire landscape seems to be steadily increasing.
2. ¶"Stuck in time". "Federation and control". ¶6.
  
  An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 84 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Yeah. I love Signal but it doesn't belong in that list. Dansup (creator of loops and pixelfed) is apparently working on "Sup" that will be a decentralized alternative to whatsapp.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 59 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To me this person sounds like they have too many big projects at once. I wish them success tho

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah.. I'm bit afraid of "kbin Ernest Effect" (not sure what a proper term is) where personal issues pile up and the sole head developer just disappears.

Haven't followed dansup much but from what I understand he is much more open to pull requests and listening to the community, but time will tell. Right now I appreciate and love his effort, giving, and the impact on fediverse he is brining.

The kickstarter was a good idea.

[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Given that I’ve waited 3 weeks to join his smaller instance of pixelfed.art, I can tell things are already piling up. I am hoping the kickstarter does help.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago

Damn. Yeah let's hope he can hire some help...

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

XMPP is an established federated messaging app with encryption.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There isn't much information about "Sup", but if I had to guess it could be that dansup is making sup app with XMPP(rotocol) as the messaging protocol.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Originally it was supposed to be ActivityPub based, but recently they posted something about it being for XMPP, Matrix and IRC as well 🤷‍♂️ Maybe they decided to fork Pidgin 😂

IMHO Sup. isn't going to happen. They will have their hands more than full with Pixelfed's new popularity and maybe Loops.

[–] chrislowles@lemm.ee 1 points 15 hours ago

Multi-protocol would be awesome, hopefully down the line it'll come back around to adding some basic AP integration.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Oh! didn't know that, I thought activitypub can't be used for secure messaging. Lol really hope its XMPP!

Yeah I didn't take it that seriously when it was announced right now. Just hope pixelfed stays afloat amidst the user flood and hope he can publish loops as open source soon!

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That would be rad if true ^^

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago

Let's hope so! :)

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

sup is how I update my FreeBSD /usr/src tree! Twenty years ago.

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Delta.chat already exists

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Matrix?

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

SimpleX?

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 42 points 1 day ago

My comment wasn't protesting the use of Signal; it was rather clarifying the misinformation in OP's post — ie misinformation that Signal is a federated service.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Bro put citations in his lemmy comment 💀

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago

I do my best to cite any claim that I make. I would encourage others to do the same.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wish more people did that ngl 💀

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago

Based.

[–] apex32@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wish Boost understood the collapsible spoilers.

On my client, it's all expanded and I see all the formatting characters. It looks/works great in a browser though.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I wish Boost understood the collapsible spoilers.

On my client, it’s all expanded and I see all the formatting characters.

Ah dang, that's good to know (though I'm not sure what to do as an alternative) — I was unaware that the collapsible spoilers weren't supported on Boost. I guess that means that Lemmy's markdown formatting hasn't entirely been standardized across the service. I personally have encountered some inconsistency on the Tesseract UI with CommonMark Autolink ^[2]^ formatting where the autolinks don't even render ^[1]^.

I recommend reporting this to the Boost devs to improve Markdown feature compatibility between them and the Lemmy UI.

References

"Kalcifer" @Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works. To: ["Happy #GlobalSwitchDay". @squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de. "Fediverse" !fediverse@lemmy.world. Tesseract. sh.itjust.works. Published: 2025-02-01T07:08:40Z. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:40Z. https://tesh.itjust.works/post/sh.itjust.works/32046509.]. Published: 2025-02-01T09:20:14Z. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:42Z. https://sh.itjust.works/post/32046509/16425699.
- Raw Text:
```
Signal isn't federated ^[1][2][3.1]^; it's decentralized ^[1][2][3.2]^. Though, for all practical purposes, I would generally argue that it's centralized. 
```

 spoiler References
1. Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. <https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server>.
   - This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
2. "Signal (software)". Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-06T09:34Z. Accessed: 2025-02-1T09:30Z. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)>.
   - ¶"Architecture". ¶"Servers".
     > Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal's messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users' public keys. […]
3. "Reflections: The ecosystem is moving". moxie0. Signal Blog. Published: 2016-05-10. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:40Z.  <https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/>.
   1. ¶5. to ¶"Stuck in time". ¶3-6
      > One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all. […] [interoperable protocols] [have] taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. […] Early on, I thought we’d federate Signal once its velocity had subsided. Now I realize that things will probably never slow down, and if anything the velocity of the entire landscape seems to be steadily increasing.
   2. ¶"Stuck in time". "Federation and control". ¶6.
      > An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.
:::

Rendered:

In the rendered text there are no links; however, there should be links at the end, as is shown by the CommonMark autolinks in the raw text.

"CommonMark Spec". John MacFarlane. CommonMark. Version: 0.31.2. Published: 2024-01-28. Accessed: 2025-02-02T04:51Z. https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#uri-autolink.

§6.5 "Autolinks". ¶2.

A URI autolink consists of <, followed by an absolute URI followed by >. It is parsed as a link to the URI, with the URI as the link’s label. :::

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Same with Sync, unfortunately.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago

Dang 😕. See my comment for a related response.

I recommend reporting the bug to the Sync devs to fix their Markdown formatting to improve feature compatibility between them and the Lemmy UI.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That person isn’t fucking around.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I take the issue of misinformation seriously. I try to be the change that I wish to see.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Signal is hostile to third party clients like Molly.im as well

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

That's not true. Moxie Marlinespike only had a problem with a fork called "LibreSignal" because it was using their name. He didn't want users to confuse the apps.

[–] jollyrogue@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, Moxie has openly shot down the idea of adding federation to Signal, and I’ve never heard them claim Signal was decentralized.

Matrix is federated, distributed, and decentralized.

XMPP is federated and decentralized.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Matrix is […] distributed […].

It is? How so?

[–] jollyrogue@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Matrix servers keep a copy of any remote room an account on the server has joined, and it’s possible to recreate a room from the copies held on different servers. There are more details I don’t remember, but at a high level that’s how it’s distributed.

Storing messages of remote rooms in addition to local rooms is why people complain about the storage requirements of Matrix servers. They don’t realize it’s distributed.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Interesting — I hadn't considered it that way.

[–] namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all.

The fact that we have a telephone system that works with separate providers contradicts this sentiment. If I want to pick up the phone and talk to my cousin's puppy in New Zealand, I can do that without creating an account on his provider's service.

I don't understand why we've forgotten this as a society. Yes, it was difficult to upgrade the phone systems over the past century, but it's worth it in my opinion. I really wish we'd start seeing government regulation that says "you should be able to talk to someone on a service without having to create an account on said service." I thought the DMA would do this, but sadly, Whatsapp still requires an account to talk to people using that service. Very disappointing.

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

it’s decentralized

No it’s not. From literally your own comment:

Signal relies on centralized servers

For a decentralized messenger use https://delta.chat/

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

it’s decentralized

No it’s not. From literally your own comment:

Signal relies on centralized servers

I was using "decentralized" to mean that there isn't centralized control over ownership of the service in general — eg anyone can spin up their own server (impractical, imo, pushing it more towards being centralized) and people can use it (making it decentralized, imo (Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do think my usage of the term is appropriate in this way.)), but people who use that server can only communicate with that server (making it not federated). But yes it could still be said to be centralized in that it operates on a client-server model ^[1]^.

This is more an argument of definitions, though. I'm not trying to claim anything in bad faith.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That’s just open source, not decentralized. I can’t find a definition of decentralization that would even make it vague. From Wikipedia:

Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it.

Signal has a central authoritative server and to use it with any other server you have to modify the source code.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within

Imo this fits my usage of the term — Signal can be broken up into many isolated servers ^[1]^ all offering the same service.

References

Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That’s just open source, not decentralized.

Depending on exactly how said open source development is occuring, I could argue that open source development is an example of decentralization. It may even be an example of federation (all depending on licensing and development medium imo).