frequently asked questions

what is cabal?

cabal is a decentralized, private chat platform for friends and communities

how are you funded?

we are a commons-oriented volunteer project, the only funding we've gotten are from open source grants (FundOSS, NLnet, Mozilla's Fix The Internet Spring). we are primarily funded by donations.

we have not received venture capital, and we are not interested in pursuing venture capital funding

this is cool, how can i help out?

thank you!!! check out /contribute.html for details on how to help out

we're specifically looking to encourage independent implementions of cable, and for help with making cabal happen on mobile

can i use it on my phone?

not yet! as a volunteer team we're lacking the skillset of a mobile developer. if you think you could help us, please reach out!

how can i reach you?

check out our contacts page for the current best ways to get in touch

why hasn't client x been updated?

we're volunteers and so that means our activity ebbs and wanes. we've also been busy developing a new protocol: cable

why did you make a new protocol? (cable)

there are a few different considerations, but mainly we wanted to make something that could work offline in a peer-to-peer fashion, while also enabling people to delete their posts as well as selectively load parts of the chat history (instead of loading every message since the chat was started).

as a volunteer project, we also wanted to have a stable foundation to build on and making our own protocol and implementing our chat clients on-top of that seemed like a good choice and a fun challenge