Why Do We Use Telegram

We use Telegram for daily communication in general and teaching online courses in particular. We use Telegram for family, friends, people, communities and classrooms. We address why do we use Telegram in this article.

Free software

Telegram is free software licensed under GNU General Public License. As a member of free software community, this reason is always our priority. This alone is basically enough.

Desktop application

We want software running inside our computer to be free. Telegram is available as a desktop application we can run on desktop and laptop computers and not just mobile version. This makes us could modernly chat in group in freedom back in 2014 when we had only a laptop and no phone. We said modern ways meaning not IRC-like but WhatsApp-like.

History

Telegram is the earliest free software alternative to WhatsApp. We did use Telegram for communication, teaching and profit since 2014. No other free software alternative predated Telegram at that time (XMPP was clearly not an option). By alternatives we mean Element, DeltaChat, XMPP, Jami, Tox etc.

People and community

Telegram has the one thing we need, that is, people and community — and especially in the country where we live, Indonesia. No other free software alternatives have it. This reason is superior to technological ones like choosing XMPP instead.

Multiplatform, multidevice

Telegram is a complete alternative to WhatsApp as it has all versions –Desktop, Android, iOS, Web– and surpasses it as Telegram supports multidevice as well as multiaccount. It means, one account can login on many laptops then receive and send messages simultaneously altogether — the same does if you have even more devices.

Features

No other free software alternative today offers complete features of Telegram as the following:

• Fast
• Group chat
• Private and public groups
• Channels
• Fine privacy controls in group
• Phone number identity
• Simple identity link
• Simple group link
• Identity link has nice web page
• Edit message
• Delete message
• File sharing
• Voice call
• Video call
• Video conference
• Screen sharing (works in all devices)
• Chat history
• Export chat
• Multidevice
• Multiaccount

We Migrated People

We already led people more than a thousand to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram. We are doing it and we will do more. Our computer course is running on Telegram. We witness that people are very easy to attend, communicate and participate this way. If someone wants people to switch away from Telegram, simply do the same like us and see if people will attend.

We Teach

If you are a teacher, you will need something like WhatsApp or Telegram to quickly communicate with fellow teachers and students. By a quick evaluation, of course we choose Telegram because it is free software. We are lucky that since its first release, people reception had been very good and now even more people use Telegram today. We are a teacher and we need Telegram.

Luck

Luck is a criterion many people seem to be missed when evaluating a technology. If the other alternatives already came back in 2014 starting in equal with Telegram, we believe they will not see the same success as Telegram. XMPP predates Telegram but unfortunately it lacks luck. We say that Telegram is lucky.

Why We Don’t Switch Away

We don’t leave Telegram for any other alternatives because we work on it already, we do not need another alternative at the moment to be frank, the worries do not happen (we wish they never do) and the real reason is there is no other one better than Telegram today. See also Justifying Shortcomings.

Justifying Shortcomings

Centralization. A few people see that using telegram is not right just because they say it is centralized, not decentralized, not federated as in networking architecture. We reply with we –together with many of other people– use what we need, we evaluate a solution based on our needs and Telegram as a free software does fulfill our needs.

Private server software. Another small group of people say that telegram server software is proprietary or nonfree. That’s incorrect. We reply that it is private software, we cannot force anyone to publish their private software, and it is unethical to do so, and using Telegram does not imply us being a nonfree software user.

Security. Some people criticize the security aspects of Telegram and we say their criticism were correct, we don’t reject their reasonings. However, another free software alternatives also have their own security issues, and the security worries of the critics did not happen, so we keep using Telegram. (Note: to be fair, proprietary software messengers do not have security at fundamental level so we do not choose them since the beginning).

Phone number and privacy. Some people criticize the privacy aspects of Telegram and we say they are also correct. For example, Telegram uses phone number as user identity is a privacy concern to them. We reply that all people and organizations in the world use phone numbers, had been for many decades, and still be for unforeseen years ahead and we cannot hope to stop that. Phone numbers are extremely useful for example to find your family, teachers and students. It is a feature, not a shortcoming. If other messengers can create modern messaging without one, we’d love first to see if it is succeeded or not. As a benchmark, we’d love to first see it surpasses the number of users of LINE in Japan or WeChat in China.

Answering Future Issues

Sustainability. Some persons worry for the future of each communication software like Telegram. Their reasonings vary from citing centralization, security, phone number and privacy issues, single company and some others. We do not need to reply seriously because all technologies have the same problem that is none can guarantee their future. With the solution we have now, Telegram, we do our job and we will do it well.

Alternatives. As for alternatives to Telegram, since long ago, we also had considered ones such as Element Messenger (which is based on Matrix) and more lately DeltaChat (which is based on email) and we will move on if only these worries became reality and force us to do so. Remember that this kind of move is very hard as many people should migrate altogether and not just us alone.

Conclusion

That’s all the reasons why do we use Telegram. We address 8 reasons above, which are, free software, desktop, history, people, multidevice, features, migration and luck. We wish the best for Telegram and for the worries to never reach it because it benefits many people and give them freedom they deserve. For people who criticize Telegram but never use it, we suggest you to try it out either by borrowing someone else’s or simply installing it on your own. We also wish you success. Last but not least, we are human and we may be right and may be wrong, and this article is purely our opinion that can change over time. See you later.

My Impressions on XMPP

I am a Free Software user and enthusiast. I am not a software developer, but only an end-user and work as a teacher. When I talk about internet messaging, I talk solely under Software Freedom concepts. I use Telegram since 2014 (that was a long time enough) because the software runs on my computer is Free and I need Telegram for teaching about computing for Indonesian people. I do not want WhatsApp because it is proprietary software and teaching with it means teaching/causing people to use proprietary software too. Aside from Telegram, I also consider many other instant messaging choices and one of them is XMPP. This is just impressions of an end-user, not even a criticism, neither hatred at all. I myself use XMPP, like Jitsi Meet everyday, and Conversations Movim occassionally, but I cannot make it my main telecommunication. After using XMPP for years, here’s my explanation.

Definitions

In this article I will call several names:

Instant messaging: a name for all internet group chat facilities that work for users across web, desktop, and mobile. XMPP, Matrix, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp are the examples.

XMPP: a name for all the protocol as well as the end-user applications of XMPP/Jabber. Conversations, Movim, Gajim are the examples.

Broken XMPP: a name for enhanced XMPP protocol and XMPP applications by proprietary software corporations like Facebook Messenger, Google Talk, WhatsApp, Apple (I forgot the name) which are all proprietary software and removed ability to federate outside. I don’t conside those XMPP, I consider them broken XMPP.

My explanation goes below:

Telegram Server Software is Private not Proprietary

Telegram is free software. When it is said like this, it means the client software is free software. However, the server software is not free or nonfree, it is private software. Although this explanation can be applied to Signal, Threema and any other free software messengers, this is focused only to Telegram.

The Problems

There are some people in free software community say that or imply that Telegram does direct injustice to the users because the server software is, they said, “proprietary software.” This is not true. This lumps together different issues into one and reach a misguided result. This impacts many people who use Telegram, including me and many of my students, as this hinders people away from a good free software. I often find this when reading comparisons of instant messengers and the discussions mostly by people who value decentralization over anything. For example, see FSFI comparison, Freie-Messenger comparison. I respectfully disagree with them in this particular case.

The Explanation

To understand this concept, let’s read Free Software is even more important now:

(2) The freedom to make and distribute exact copies when you wish. (It is not an obligation; doing this is your choice. If the program is free, that doesn’t mean someone has an obligation to offer you a copy, or that you have an obligation to offer him a copy. Distributing a program to users without freedom mistreats them; however, choosing not to distribute the program—using it privately—does not mistreat anyone.)

To understand this more, let’s read Categories of free and nonfree software:

Private or custom software is software developed for one user (typically an organization or company). That user keeps it and uses it, and does not release it to the public either as source code or as binaries.

A private program is free software (in a somewhat trivial sense) if its sole user has the four freedoms. In particular, if the user has full rights to the private program, the program is free. […]

Free software is a matter of freedom, not access. In general we do not believe it is wrong to develop a program and not release it.[…]

To understand this even more, let’s read Network services are not free or nonfree:

It is meaningless to say that the service is “nonfree,” or that it is “free.” That distinction makes no sense, for services. […]

What’s clear is that the issues about a service are different from the issues about a program. Thus, for clarity’s sake, it is better not to apply the terms “free” and “nonfree” to a service.

Let’s suppose a service is implemented using software: the server operator has copies of many programs, and runs them to implement the service. These copies may be free software or not. If the operator developed them and uses them without distributing copies, they are free in a trivial sense since every user (there’s only one) has the four freedoms.

The lesson is as the following:

1. Free software means freedom, not access — so everyone who develops private server software does not have obligation to offer you a copy.
2. Software that runs in somebody else’s computer is the responsibility of that somebody, not you — so if that software is nonfree, that somebody does wrong to himself, not you.
3. Choosing not to publish a software is not the same as publishing nonfree software — so everyone in Telegram’s position is not like people who publish nonfree software.
4. Network services are not either free or nonfree, it is not the same as software. Many people will evaluate the client software only, so respect their choice.
5. If you reject Telegram because the server software is private (which you incorrectly call “proprietary software”), you should reject to visit (stop using web browser to) a lot of websites which the server software runs IIS or Windows Server or such proprietary software or more extremely reject to visit all websites which the server software is private.
6. If you did point 5, you should reject to use ATM too, as the software running in the ATM is Microsoft Windows.

The Conclusion

I disagree with some people who say that or imply that Telegram does direct injustice incompatible to software freedom, its server software is proprietary/nonfree, and using it is wrong because it is “centralized”.

“Software injustice”: Telegram is free software to the end-users and this is not an injustice.

“Server is proprietary software”: Telegram server is private software, it is not the same as proprietary software. The server software is not running in the end-users computers, it does not directly affect the end-users, and Telegram does not do wrong with not publishing the software.

“Centralized is wrong”: it is not wrong to end-users who need Telegram. It is even not wrong to people who love independence, decentralization and self-hosting as they can still use any other software for that purpose.

My practice is as the following:

1. Like any other free software, I use Telegram because the software running in my computer is free.
2. I use and recommend Telegram FOSS version from F-Droid for Android phone users.
3. I do not reject Telegram just because the server software is not published/private.
4. I separate software freedom issues from privacy issues and security issues.
5. I do not reject Telegram or any other free software based on choices of network shapes, for instances, centralized, decentralized, peer-to-peer, distributed, serverless or whatever.

The Suggestions

I suggest as the following:

• Instead of saying Telegram server software “proprietary” or “nonfree”, say it private software.
• Do not call or imply software that is not decentralized proprietary.

I believe it is enough.

Criteria to Choose a GNU/Linux Operating System To Help You and Organization

There are many choices of GNU/Linux operating systems like from A to Z including Arch and Zorin. These criteria are subjective and my own opinions but you may find these useful to you and organization to consider one for long time use by eliminating many of not needed or unfit ones. You can see mine at Hardware page.

Mass Production

Has a distro been mass produced, or not? A mass produced distro is like standard operating systems, such as Windows and Android, which all of them are delivered to the end-users preinstalled on computers and not as separate things. Please not forget that Windows and Android adopted by people because of mass production, otherwise, they would be extremely far less popular. Mass production is a sign of luck of an OS, also seriousness of its developers, which would upgrade it into a platform which people could look into and rely upon. If a distro is/has not mass produced, then it is a distro you can consider not to choose. Excellent examples of mass produced distros are, among others, PureOS (Librem), Ubuntu (Dell, Lenovo), Kubuntu (KFocus), KDE Neon (Slimbook), Ubuntu MATE (Entroware), Pop_Os! (System76), elementary OS and Zorin (Star Labs, LaptopWithLinux), Manjaro (PineBook), Trisquel (Respects Your Freedom, ThinkPenguin), openSUSE (Tuxedo), and Fedora (Lenovo).

User Interface User Can Use

Does a distro have user interface end-user, including kids and grandmas if any, can immediately use, or not? You would not want distro without appearance (black and white like MSDOS) or with appearance but poor in what end-user’s needs, or with appearance end-user cannot use. This means mostly familiarity based on prior experience for the end-users and how good it reduces teaching effort to the teaching users. You would not want distro that resembles no one, not similar to anything, or not clear to use/teach, as it would waste your own time and organization that you want to help. There are several hints, and one of them is, check if the file manager supports file searching like standard search one can do with Google Search, Windows and Android. This criteria involves selecting by considering end-user’s situations. For most computing users are familiar with Windows, and if you are, it is wise to choose KDE (Kubuntu), Cinnamon (Mint), or MATE (Mint and Trisquel). For most mobile device users who are familiar with Android more than Windows, and if you included here, it is wise to choose GNOME (Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE, Debian). For completely new users without prior computing experience, and if you are in this group, it is wise to choose KDE.

Survive and Early Birth Date

Is a distro old and surviving, or not? Check your distro’s initial release year. 15 years is a minimum age of a long living, old-enough distro. If one is new, or discontinued, then it is a distro you can consider not to choose. It is wise that you do not tend to choose newly launched distros. You would not want a distro that would be discontinued next year or is in an unclear development state or is already discontinued. Dormant development, lack of developer team members, or even being officially discontinued is not a luck sign you should be aware of. Surviving, matured distros are not many, among them are Slackware and Debian (1993), Red Hat and SUSE (1994), Fedora (2003) and openSUSE (2005), Ubuntu (2004) and Trisquel (2007), Kubuntu (2005) and Linux Mint (2006).

Teacher

Do you have a teacher who teach you the distro, or not? Please not forget that at our earliest days, we receive computing though teachers speaking in our own language, for years, so that we can operate Windows or MacOS. Learning computing is not automatic, not instant either, but is a process. A teacher could be your father, like most other people, your school teacher, or a community, either local or online, or your fellow user friends. It is even better if the teacher really teaches that distro as part of students computing for years at school either local or online. If a distro does not have a teacher you can find, or a community, or a fellow friend that use it near your place, then it is a distro you can consider not to use. You would not want a distro where nobody helps you, nobody you can talk to, nobody to teach you, or nothing you can read from. (On the other hand, if you are a teacher who has been teaching a distro for years to students, then it is wise to choose that distro to end-users and organization you want to help. This is exactly why Mass Production criterion is important. And this is exactly where Practice what you preach! really matters. If you want other people to use a product, you teach them how to use it, not just leaving them alone in the dark.) For your information, the excellent example, real worldwide community here without doubt is Ubuntu family.

Security Team and Advisories

Does a distro have a security team (the people) and a security advisory (the security updates bulletin), or not? If one does not, then it is a distro you can consider to not choose.  You would not want a distro not serious enough to not have its own dedicated security team and advisories. Most distros except just a few does not have these, among them which have are Arch, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu.

You can consider a distro that fulfills all or most of these criteria to be the one you choose.

Comments? Please kindly send me email or message it to my XMPP or Matrix as comments are off here.

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This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Why People May Not Adopt Fediverse Social Networks or Distributed Messengers

I am trying to address the issues of why people may not adopt your products in terms of Fediverse social networks and distributed messengers. Fediverse includes Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed and the others. Distributed messengers includes XMPP, Matrix, Jami and the others. This article is about alternative world where there is a technology society who wants to change people from using Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp to using their hoped alternatives such as Friendica, PeerTube, and XMPP. When you read this, please keep in mind end-users not developers, not technology experts either. This is my personal opinion I write without citing any reference but you can consider it further with your own common senses and experiences.

We Are All in Transitions

We are Free Software Community who initially formed thirty years ago in 1984 whom world wide people recognized by characteristics of bringing freedom software and GNU/Linux operating systems. We do a movement we call Free Software Movement. We have goal that is to change people to adopt free software. We demand that all software must be free otherwise we change people to switch to free replacements. What we do? We change people. Some have successfully changed, some changed partially, and many others have not. Thus, we are all in transitions. Let us not expect people could change instantly just like ourselves could not either and everything needs process to be done.

Changing ourselves is difficult. Changing people is also difficult. Thus, we are all in battle in this computing field battling against enemies called nonfree software with a lot of difficulties. Some can do it alone, some others with friends, the rest are practically weak or powerless if nobody helps them. This battle, these transitions, cannot be helped need priorities. We ought to priority things to be done orderly and not lump them together chaostically. Because of that, I present you my own battle, my priority list that I am practicing these years in my Free Software Computing School, and see how far you agree with me and can do useful meaningful things either alone or with team.

My Messenger Recommendation

Use free software messenger that works for you. You do not need to use one that does not. By free software it means the program that runs on your own computer or device. There are several choices among many choices I presented to you here to choose. All choices mentioned below feature file sharing as well as voice and video calls. Consider your friends and family and trying out a messenger together with them may help a lot.

Multidevice Choices

Telegram (GNU GPL) fast and full featured messenger.

   Signal (GPL) secure and private messenger praised by many.

Wire (GPL), Switzerland privacy messenger for teams, phone number optional, awards winning.

Threema (AGPL), Switzerland professional privacy messenger, phone number optional.

Movim (AGPL) a user friendly messenger as well as blogging and social media.

Element (Apache), United Kingdom successful mass messenger.

Jami (GPL), secure serverless cross platform messenger.

Decentralization Choices

Movim, explained above, the XMPP client.

Element, explained above, the Matrix client.

Conversations (AGPL), the Android app for XMPP network.

Jami (GPL), explained above, the GNU operating system’s messenger.

Serverless Choices

Jami, explained above, a truly peer to peer messenger and SIP client.

Afterwords

You need productive communication so use libre software messenger that works. Don’t let your libre software choice be disturbed by anyone else who demand you switching to their choice — otherwise, you will be productive in changing instead of communicating. About software licenses above, learn quickly and effectively from GNU’s Various Licenses. About choices not mentioned, we can expect good things from Delta Chat, Session and Tox (all GPL). I hope this would be useful and see you next time.

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This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Decentralization is Not Mandatory

Free Software Movement is an effort which the goal is computer users’ freedom. That means for individual person, software running in his/her computing is free. If the software is not, then, the movement changes the people to change the software. This is already hard to accept and achieve by most people. We are all in transition. You do it, I also do it. Some can do it fast, some is slow. If someone uses WhatsApp, not a free software, you can tell him/her to also use a free software of your choice without mocking his/her WhatsApp and that person may change. If one adopts a free software, respect his/her choice without degrading nor insulting. But you cannot force your free software choice to others who already chose another free software. If you support decentralization, I also support it, but it is more of developer’s concerns and not priority for most end users and me, and it is not mandatory. What people need is what’s important as long as software running inside his/her computer is free. Don’t change people forcefully, and don’t forbid people from using Telegram, Signal or Wire just because you have different opinion. Decentralization of instant messenger is not mandatory for most users and you can’t force it to people. If you want to change people, or if you just want friends, please teach and guide people wisely not by force, not by degrading their free software choice either.

Contact

You can contact me by these addresses.

• Email: malsasa@disroot.org
• Telegram: t.me/Malsasa
• Matrix: purplesky@matrix.org
• XMPP: purplesky@movim.eu
• Phone number: I do not have one

About Windows, MacOS and GNU/Linux

This is an explanation of three major computer operating systems in the world namely Windows, MacOS and GNU/Linux. All of the term free software below refers to freedom and not price (the user is unlimited) where proprietary software term refers to owned by the developer not the user (the user is fully limited).

What is Windows?

Microsoft Windows is proprietary software computer operating system made by United States based company Microsoft and mass produced since 1985 in cooperation with almost all PC and laptop manufacturers. It is found in almost all brands of hardware including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and more.  User’s method to obtain Windows is officially either by (mostly) buying a machine bundled with it or by buying the software package then install it later to a machine. This OS is mostly made for x86 computer architecture users. By security, this OS is highly known as the most insecure and proved to be malicious software by its own users. Windows is not free software.

What is MacOS?

Apple macOS (formerly Mac OS, Mac OS X, OS X) is proprietary software computer operating system made by United States based company Apple and mass produced since 1984 by itself under a single brand named Macintosh (with variations namely MacBook, iMac, iPhone, iPad). No MacOS available or sold by brands other than Apple Computers. User’s method to obtain MacOS is only to buy a Macintosh from Apple. This OS is exclusively or only made for Macintosh computers regardless the architecture. By security, this OS is proven to be malicious software by its own community. MacOS is not free software.

What is GNU/Linux?

GNU/Linux (pronounced gnu slash linux) is a free software computer operating system made by combination of GNU OS by GNU Project and Linux Kernel by Linux Project since 1993. It is not mass produced since its inception to mid 2010 until several established as well as new companies started to manufacture and sell GNU/Linux computers worldwide by various brands where Lenovo and Dell as the former while Purism and System76 as the latter followed by other manufacturers like Pine64 later. User’s method to obtain GNU/Linux is varied, including by buying bundled computers (not widely known in the past), as well as by downloading the OS copy from the internet, asking copy from a friend, and more. Different to either Windows or MacOS, the users can obtain it with another names for example Ubuntu, Red Hat, and openSUSE which each one is an individual OS. GNU/Linux is not proprietary software.