Session will shut down on July 8th unless they raise $1 million dollars in funding

Session messenger will shut down on July 8th unless it raises $1 million in funding. The project is undergoing a restructuring to lower barriers for outside contributions and improve cross-platform development, with senior developer Jason expected to maintain cryptographic standards. The future of Session depends on successful fundraising and community support.

Not a good look. But the alternative is untenable. I won’t lose sleep over AI being used for a popular GPL’d privacy project in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve spoken to Jason about this. Since he is a senior developer who’s been involved in the project’s core since the start, I don’t expect him to lower his standards on cryptography. That’s not to say that Session’s cryptography isn’t hiding some strange https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/session-messenger-prepares-to-weaken-file-encryption/32591 decisions https://soatok.blog/2025/01/20/session-round-2/ other-astonishing-cryptographic-software . But that’s the more reason for a rewrite to achieve PFS and PQ https://getsession.org/session-protocol-v2 . Development “opening up” entails a lowering of the barrier for outside contributions. The requirement for cross-platform feature parity has been a blocker for anyone trying to submit MRs, and there’s certainly been an aspect of pride & tunnel vision stopping outside contributions up till now see my previous posts in this thread . With how the code will be structured going forward, it should allow others to build bots, custom clients, change the UI across platforms more easily than ever before… That’s not a guarantee features will be accepted, but I trust Jason will want to put some time aside to review new contributors’ work within in a year or so. I’m hoping that this change in Session’s stewardship will be supported by the rest of the STF. No clue if I’ll still be around by then I know I’m praising Jason a lot here. But even the author of this scathing 2024 blog post https://caliban.org/wp/2024/08/session-instant-messenger-is-fraught-with-serious-problems/ who happens to be the ex-contributor mentioned in the update video agreed that Jason was THE person who could merge outside code. My experience is similar, even if a bit less fortunate; I just maintain some forks and auxiliary projects.