Fork the client and the server then. Yes, I've seen from other comments that the server repo is apparently rarely updated. If that's significant to getting a working client, probably fork the client from earlier; most likely, it you get a significant number of users, you're going to need to get really familiar with the server environment anyway.

Running a server environment is probably time consuming ane expensive, but that's kind of why the people running the servers get to set the rules.

That then means you can't communicate with others running the normal Signal client. Signal is not a federated protocol.

I would phrase that differently. You can't use your (forked) client to communicate with others who are not running your client. With a forked server, and a forked client, you're welcome to add federation, but Signal doesn't want it. But then again, the complaint is that people don't like how the Signal project is doing things.

Maybe running your own network will help explain why they do things the way you don't like. Maybe running your own network will help explain how running things the way you like can actually work.

> That then means you can't communicate with others running the normal Signal client. Signal is not a federated protocol.

You also can't communicate with WhatsApp users directly either.

If your fork of Signal in better, then you should have no difficulty it convincing people to switch to it. Just because the software is open source, you're not entitled to connect to and use someone else's service in any way you like.

Right, but the idea and comment I'm addressing is "If you don't like it, create a fork".

This "do it yourself" mantra doesn't apply to Signal, and they have a history of rejecting community work. It's much more valuable to advocate for changes and fixes to the main app.

> If your fork of Signal in better, then you should have no difficulty it convincing people to switch to it.

This isn't true. Signal has a marketing budget and millions of downloads of inertia.

Sure, and they can fork the server (which I know isn't completely up to date) as well. No one is entitled to the work and resources of the Signal team. If people don't like where they are going, they are free to fork and build and maintain an alternative on their own.

Yes, convincing the Signal team to address their particular issues would be a much easier path for them, but a) again, they are not entitled to anything, and b) attempting to convince by acting childishly and ignoring the Signal team's wishes is not a great way to convince anyone of anything.