AI copies in seconds
With AI, anyone can take a public codebase, rename it, restyle it and launch a copycat that looks and acts like the original. What took us years takes them an afternoon.
Open source
Why mssgs isn’t open source. Yet.
We would love to show the world what we have built. But now that AI can copy a product in an afternoon, publishing our code today would mostly help whoever wants to copy us. Here is why, how we earn your trust instead, and what will change.
Why not now
A copy takes seconds now.
Open source used to mean that people could learn from your work and build on it. Today it also means that anyone can feed it to an AI, put their own name on the result and launch the same app tomorrow.
Money wins the race
A clone with a big budget can outspend the original on ads and in the app stores, and pretend to be the real thing. The people who built it then lose the race with their own work.
Not well known enough yet
Large open-source projects are protected by their name: when a clone shows up, people know where the original is. mssgs is still growing, and we want people to find us, not a copy of us.
Hard to rebuild is not impossible
The servers and infrastructure behind mssgs are not easy to rebuild. But with AI a lot has become possible, and we will not bet the product on someone giving up halfway.
We are proud of what we have made, and we would love to show it. Giving it all away now, while we are small, would feel like we built it for free, for whoever copies it first.
Open is not the same as safe
Publishing code on its own helps nobody.
Open source and federation are often treated as proof that an app is safe and private. On their own, they are neither.
Published is not checked
Code on the internet is only safer when someone actually reads it, tests it and fixes what they find. Most published code is never checked by anyone outside the team that wrote it.
Federated is not private
Letting anyone run a server that talks to the others does not protect your messages by itself: they then also sit on servers run by people you know even less about. It moves the question of whom you trust, it does not answer it.
What keeps you safe is the work behind the code: how it is built, tested and checked, where it runs, and who answers when something goes wrong.
How we earn your trust
Checked, instead of published.
Until mssgs is big enough to be open source, we cover it with proper security checks and certifications, and we are open about everything you can verify yourself.
Security checks
Instead of asking you to read our code, we put the work into checking it: proper security checks of the apps and the servers, so problems are found and fixed before they reach you.
A certified data centre
The servers mssgs runs on are hosted with BIT in Ede, the Netherlands, which is certified for ISO 27001 (information security), ISO 9001 and NEN 7510. See BIT’s certificates.
Tell us what you find
Found a security problem? Write to security@mss.gs. We would much rather hear it from you first and fix it than read about it later.
Apps you can check
The Mac app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and the Windows app is signed by Deverence Group B.V., so you can see that an app really comes from us.
EU ownership, verified
eu-alt.eu has independently verified that mssgs is European owned, with dated proof on its listing.
Open where you build on us
Everything you can build on is documented in the open: webhooks, bots, slash commands, the MCP server, the Game SDK and the feed API. See the developer docs.
Later
Open source is where we want to end up.
At some point we expect to open-source big parts of our code. There is no secret to protect, and we are 100% sure we can learn from each other, both ways: from the people who read our code, and from the projects we would love to give back to.
That moment comes when mssgs is well known enough that people recognise the original when a copy shows up. Until then we keep building, and we keep having our work checked.
Questions
Frequently asked questions about open source
Is mssgs open source?
Not yet. The code of the apps and the servers is not public at the moment. What you build on, such as webhooks, bots, the MCP server, the Game SDK and the feed API, is documented in the open in the developer docs.
Will mssgs become open source?
We expect to open-source big parts of the code once mssgs is well known enough that people can tell the original from a copy. There is no secret in it to protect, and we look forward to learning from each other.
Why not open it up now?
Because AI has made copying a public codebase a matter of seconds, and a copy with more money behind it could outspend us on ads before people know which app is the original.
How do I know mssgs is safe without seeing the code?
Through security checks and certifications rather than published code: the data centre mssgs runs in is certified for ISO 27001, the desktop apps are signed, and problems can be reported to security@mss.gs. The security page explains how your account, your messages and your data are protected.
Isn’t a federated app more private?
Not by itself. When servers federate, your messages are copied to servers run by other people, so you have to trust them too. Privacy comes from how a service is built, run and checked, not from how many servers it is spread over.
Questions about our code?
Want to know more about how mssgs is built or how we check it? Write to us, we are happy to explain.