Zulip committed the cardinal sin of stripping out notification support from their mobile apps for anyone not paying to force people to pay them.
Every other messaging app out there that is open source covers the minimal costs associated (and for Zulip, with an unpaid userbase that is tiny, these costs are laughably small) to host the infra associated. Note that Firebase Cloud Messaging itself is free. Wire, Signal, Threema, every single XMPP app, Element: none of these force users to build and distribute modded apks just to get notifications.
It was a tactic and it sucked and it burned any and all goodwill I had for Zulip.
Cyphase · 3h ago
I'm a Zulip fan (and poster of this story), so you can take this with a grain of salt if you want.
1. Regarding "minimal costs" of notifications, the project lead said in an HN comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38661960) from when this was announced, "The problem statement is not that we need to fund the costs of delivering push notifications. We need to fund the costs of building Zulip -- the server, apps for every platform, support for a vast range of different self-hosted configurations, etc." That was on the announcement thread on HN, so you can find more from him and other commenters there.
2. They offer free plans (for the app/service itself, and also just notifications if you're self-hosted) for lots of non-commercial organizations (including open source projects and communities). Discounts for larger non-profits and others. The info is prominent on their pricing page: https://zulip.com/plans/
3. There's a discounted plan for just mobile notifications.
Ok I'm not sure I understand the issue here. I'm not an Android whiz but I thought FCM was inherently invasive, so if I ran Zulip from a security and privacy perspective, I'd want to self-host it including running my own notification server. It doesn't bother me at all if Zulip charges people to use their hosted plans, and I'm suspicious of the existence of a gratis one ("if you're not the customer...").
I guess though that an openpush/unifiedpush(?) client is another thing to install on the phone though. I probably care more about the web version than the mobile apps. I've been using nextcloud talk but it's kind of awful.
lima · 1h ago
I'm fine with paying for it, but what's worse is that the notifications aren't end-to-end encrypted, and the plaintext passes through their server and Google's.
For some use cases where self hosting is required for compliance reasons, this is a deal breaker. And spinning your own mobile apps isn't quite practical.
tabbott · 1h ago
We're very actively working on end-to-end encryption for notifications; it'll be in the Zulip 11.0 release this summer if at all possible.
While I'm here, the Flutter rewrite of the mobile app is launching next month, and while the initial launch won't add much functionality over the previous React Native apps, the rewrite is way faster, less buggy, and a lot more pleasant to add new features to.
throwaway81523 · 4h ago
I was pretty sure Google charges for use of FCM above a certain small volume, but anyway a FOSS app should use OpenPush or whatever the current thing is. Is Zulip FOSS? I haven't been paying attention to this segment.
I lead the Zulip project, and frankly this comment is highly demoralizing.
For what it's worth, Zulip is entirely FOSS. In contrast with most commercial open source software on the market today, Zulip charges only for Cloud hosting, push infrastructure, and support -- not the software itself. We offer free or highly discounted plans for non-business use.
And yet, even we get attacked because we stopped letting businesses use our push infrastructure for free too. How are we supposed to publish a professional quality self-hostable product without any monetization?
If you oppose all forms of FOSS monetization, no matter how reasonable, you're advocating for a world where FOSS cannot compete in many product categories.
And if you want FOSS to succeed in team chat specifically, the real issue is that Microsoft Teams and Slack have entrenched their duopoly with some pretty effective anti-competitive tactics (Microsoft Bundling and Slack Connect, most importantly), and that fact isn't on many people's radar as an issue at all.
mrd3v0 · 2m ago
It is just one comment on Y Combinator's link aggregation service. People who haven't tried starting a serious FOSS project, do not understand how unsustainable it is. Funny thing is, like you mentioned, the monetisation isn't even imposed on the software itself, the entire software is free. It is on the *gratis* service to host it.
Entitlement knows no bounds. Don't worry about those disheartening comments, they are not coming from a place of genuine concern.
emptysongglass · 54m ago
I wrote my comment because I want you to stop this practice. Being demoralized doesn't appear to change your mind about the decision to do what not a single other FOSS messaging app out there does. Zulip is the only one. Maybe reconsider Zulip's stance given how completely alone it is in its choice.
Your team made the decision, now you get to own it. And I'll keep putting a light on it until it changes. You call it vitriol, I call it fair warning to anyone considering adopting Zulip.
I am not a business and I certainly would not touch Zulip with a ten-foot pole given your team's decision.
Every other messaging app out there that is open source covers the minimal costs associated (and for Zulip, with an unpaid userbase that is tiny, these costs are laughably small) to host the infra associated. Note that Firebase Cloud Messaging itself is free. Wire, Signal, Threema, every single XMPP app, Element: none of these force users to build and distribute modded apks just to get notifications.
It was a tactic and it sucked and it burned any and all goodwill I had for Zulip.
1. Regarding "minimal costs" of notifications, the project lead said in an HN comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38661960) from when this was announced, "The problem statement is not that we need to fund the costs of delivering push notifications. We need to fund the costs of building Zulip -- the server, apps for every platform, support for a vast range of different self-hosted configurations, etc." That was on the announcement thread on HN, so you can find more from him and other commenters there.
2. They offer free plans (for the app/service itself, and also just notifications if you're self-hosted) for lots of non-commercial organizations (including open source projects and communities). Discounts for larger non-profits and others. The info is prominent on their pricing page: https://zulip.com/plans/
3. There's a discounted plan for just mobile notifications.
Here's their original announcement post, with an update linked to from the top: https://blog.zulip.com/2023/12/15/new-plans-for-self-hosted-...
I guess though that an openpush/unifiedpush(?) client is another thing to install on the phone though. I probably care more about the web version than the mobile apps. I've been using nextcloud talk but it's kind of awful.
For some use cases where self hosting is required for compliance reasons, this is a deal breaker. And spinning your own mobile apps isn't quite practical.
While I'm here, the Flutter rewrite of the mobile app is launching next month, and while the initial launch won't add much functionality over the previous React Native apps, the rewrite is way faster, less buggy, and a lot more pleasant to add new features to.
https://github.com/zulip/zulip
For what it's worth, Zulip is entirely FOSS. In contrast with most commercial open source software on the market today, Zulip charges only for Cloud hosting, push infrastructure, and support -- not the software itself. We offer free or highly discounted plans for non-business use.
And yet, even we get attacked because we stopped letting businesses use our push infrastructure for free too. How are we supposed to publish a professional quality self-hostable product without any monetization?
If you oppose all forms of FOSS monetization, no matter how reasonable, you're advocating for a world where FOSS cannot compete in many product categories.
And if you want FOSS to succeed in team chat specifically, the real issue is that Microsoft Teams and Slack have entrenched their duopoly with some pretty effective anti-competitive tactics (Microsoft Bundling and Slack Connect, most importantly), and that fact isn't on many people's radar as an issue at all.
Entitlement knows no bounds. Don't worry about those disheartening comments, they are not coming from a place of genuine concern.
Your team made the decision, now you get to own it. And I'll keep putting a light on it until it changes. You call it vitriol, I call it fair warning to anyone considering adopting Zulip.
I am not a business and I certainly would not touch Zulip with a ten-foot pole given your team's decision.