Firstly (especially in German law) having a private person being liable is way more worth than having a GmbH (Geselschaft mit beschränkter Haftung) (I can go more in-depth if you wan't).
I know what a GmbH is and how it works - the problem is that that won't help anyone. We want reliable, free and trustworthy (thus open) software.
You are neither a trustworthy company, nor would a GmbH would you make more trustworthy, because of several reasons:
- A GmbH would have money and employees to lose. This isn't applicable here.
- Everyone can create a GmbH.
- Even if you would create a GmbH - you still didn't gain more user trust by just creating a juristic person you can blame everything on.
- A GmbH creates your own private assets from being "punished" for making dumb decisions.
All of this would disagree the the trust aspect.
Software is only really somewhat trustworthy, when you and everyone else on the world can look into it - not because some corporation says its trustworthy.
Secondly, your named company is not known for "known for security audits and military usage". They, as far as I know, never claimed so nor is any of that proven.
This is not true as well. The old homepage which confirmed that it was used by the US military was taken down - but here is a tweet confirming that:
If I wouldn't know it better - being audited and used by the military makes a software more trustworthy then someone proclaiming something being safe.
TeaSpeak is itself a Client <=> Server software which offers way more features than your named third party software.
Not only is using such client stupid, it's also causing problems. As TeaSpeak grows further in terms of users and features, such protocol similarities will be dropped.
I totally see where this idea comes from and if we wouldn't live in our current society I would follow that dream too.
In times of discord, zoom and other hyper-user-friendly apps, the original Tea*Speak and similar solutions are dying out.
Most users don't want to pay license fees to use a "uglier discord", don't want to host their server or pay someone to do it and they also don't want to hassle with yet another client.
Dropping Tea*Speak protocol compatibility would most likely kill of this project, since I would predict that apart from a very tiny core-audience, most people didn't ever hear or would want to hassle with yet another client: The TeaSpeak client.
Yes it is an alternative, and yes it works pretty great - but the reality (at least from my point of view) is that killing of Tea*Speak protocol support would also drive away 99% of conscious and unconscious TeaSpeak server users.
You can always try to completely switch to your own developed protocol, but that would kill what would be so great in TeaSpeak for most people, without the possibility to let other people keep the old TeaSpeak alive.
This is what really makes me headaches when thinking about supporting TeaSpeak in the long run, because I know that I and all of our users won't be able to use it and keep it running anymore in an unspecified future.
This is a thing with almost all small/medium-sized software provider.
This is a negative and thus a pretty bad excuse - also driving away people with legitimate interest in supporting a software project in the long run.
Do you want to change the community and provide a free and better alternative for everyone in the long run or do you want to be a "small/medium-sized software provider" that drags all it's followers into the grave with them when your ship is sinking?
What you've correctly pointed out is, that TeaSpeak currently does not have a straight, public road-map (I have some plans for myself).
This is mainly because I don't want to force myself into fulfilling some deadlines, at least right now it's still a free-time project of mine.
So this is a problem you admit yourself. A way of fixing this would (for example) setting the code free and letting the community (which you are always a part of) handle future plans - ensuring a mix of everyones needs and desires and a faster and richer development and a clearer future for everybody involved.
"It's a win for everybody.", yes but only if people participate, which they (currently) don't seem to do (you can take the open-source WebClient/client UI as a reference
https://github.com/TeaSpeak/TeaWeb).
Maybe you're mixing some things up here, namely the TeaSpeak client and the TeaSpeak server - which are two separate software packages.
The interest for the TeaSpeak client will naturally will always be smaller then of the server, because the audience for the client is also ridiculously small.
This project started and began to grow with the creation of the TeaSpeak server software - which is binary compatible to the Tea*Speak server software - thus attracting a way larger audience, because there is an existing problem that the server software solves for many people.
The client on the other hand doesn't solve a problem most people have with the server, so the interest in contribution as well as in usage will always be smaller.
Because of this big difference in usage, problem-solving and public interest, you cannot logically use the public interest in the TeaSpeak client to justify not open sourcing the server software.
Well yes and no. They're free but all of them are not standalone free.
Chromium itself is a big financial loss for google. Java isn't free any more (it kinda is but it's complicated) and Linux is backed up by GNU.
Sadly you can't compare such projects with our situation since all of them have a big company behind them which have the financial ability to back up such projects.
Also again big misinterpretations or strait lies:
(Open Source and Free) Linux is a standalone product - like the TeaSpeak server. Your argument here is that it' wouldn't work without (Open Source and Free) GNU-Tools? Linux started completely without commercial interest and the only way it could grow this much was by open sourcing it and allowing others to work on it and influence it as well.
Java also being a open source project, that developed bigger by getting adopted and improved by the community (people and companies alike). (
Source). Also Java still is free as in freedom under the GPL License (GNU General Public License) - so that's for that part.
Also Chromium isn't a negative example here at all. Google as a company (just like your GmbH you have been teasing before) had a plan and created the Chromium project, proving a steady, trustworthy and public development and community effort, that would allow interested people to develop for it, resulting in the browser ecosystem we all know and hate today.
The negative examples you listed all showed in the past, how making a project open source massively benefits it's development and adoption rate.
So you can and absolutely should can and should compare such projects, because most of them started as tiny projects that did only grow to that massive scale because of the benefits of free and open source software.
They have no right to do so.
If that's the case, there is even one less reason not to make the step.
And if you fear, that your project would be stolen and you couldn't forfil your vision: You are still the one who ones and leads this project.
If someone was really unhappy with the way it develops, he could simply fork it and make his own without disturbing you further - allowing everyone to go into a future they desire and also to use and revolutionize exising ideas.
it's called WSL.
