[delta-chat] Re: releases / next month

Hello Marco Thank you for your email. Besides DC-related considerations (e.g. dedicated account discussion, which is a very important and complex one), I am sincerely surprised that you are reproducing Russian propaganda word-by-word when talking about Ukraine. First of all, have you been to Maidan yourself? Do you know how this all has started? Do you know how bad Yanoukovitch government was? I do not praise Poroshenko either, as I do not praise any president or any government on this earth. However, Maidan has started as a genuine people-driven effort to change the situation. If it has been further coopted by right-wing forces (as it was in many other countries across the globe), it does not undermine the will for freedom that Ukrainian people have. As for the US intervention, the problem is that US is intruding almost every bottom-up driven movement, from Rojava to "Global South". It's the problem of US, not of Ukrainian people, and even less of our friends and users in Kyiv, who strongly disagree with both right-wing rise and US imperialism. I do not reject the fact that nowadays Kyiv is seeing a right-wing renaissance. Indeed, nationalist brigades are often seen in the city. But so it is the case in Brazil, Austria, US, Russia and many other countries across the world. No "democracy" is a real democracy nowadays. If you believe in democratic elections, I am truly happy for you and I wish I could share this beautiful belief. But it's impossible for me to believe that US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy or any other "western" country is any better than Ukraine today. We're all in the same boat, and this boat is sinking. It's one of the reasons we, as socially minded developers, need to be at the rescue and offer tools to those who oppose the nationalist threat. There are several reasons to gather in Kyiv. First, Ukraine is now on a very interesting crossroads, with a bursting IT sector, many talented tech enthusiasts, hosters, ISPs and email providers that are interested in growing better communication with "western" hacker cultures. Second, we want to decentralize in a geopolitical way and not focus all gatherings in western Europe or US, as many other tech teams do. Third, we have a Ukrainian team member, and a Russian one (myself), with many connections in Kyiv that can really help organize a good event in authentic places, that do not exist anymore in the gentrified and expensive western Europe. Finally, we are targeting high-risk users, namely journalists and human rights defenders who cover armed conflicts, human rights violations, demonstrations and protests and other intense political events, and it turns out that Ukraine is a perfect place to meet these users, and they are very open to experiment and work _together_ with us to make Delta.Chat better suitable for their precise causes. I would like to share many links, videos, posts about Ukraine with you in order for you to reconsider the words you have used to qualify Kyiv and Ukraine. If you are interested in a discussion on that, let me know. I hope your opinion may evolve and go beyond Russian propaganda frame. May be our team member Vadym could also add his point of view on that. All the best Ksenia On 01/29/2019 03:24 PM, Marco Vittorini Orgeas wrote: -- [question everything] Jabber/XMPP: xeniax(a)xmpp.ninja Fingerprint: CEB8EBA2 2DEA9A22 447CBFFD 80B9C334 54264E65