Free Software Enthusiast
Honestly, I wouldn’t even consider using it unless it were reviewed by a professional cryptographer. There are already battletested options that don’t require a phone number or sharing info with a company. For that, I like XMPP with a client that uses OMEMO for encryption.
Reading this thread, it seems like two different groups of people are having two different conversations.
For me, self-hosting is just that, running my own stuff at home for myself (and my immediate family). My motivation is privacy and freedom. I want to use services that are free of commercial incentives against my interests whenever possible. That usually means self-hosting my services.
I’ve been a system and network engineer for most of my career and I like configuring and managing stuff. I like knowing how everything on my home network runs, where and what data is shared, etc.
As soon as people start talking about “my users need …” I’m out. That sounds too much like what I do at work. I want to relax when I’m at home. Jellyfin is perfect for me to do that with my content without needing any of my data to go to any companies.
For everyone who wants to be an IPTV operator, Plex is the best choice right now. Jellyfin isn’t really focused on that use case.
WhatI’ve noticed is that people who prioritize privacy and just want to watch their downloads on their tv usually use jellyfin and people who prioritize ux slickness and want to run an IPTV service for their friends and family usually use plex.
To me, open sourcing the code is a move in the right direction but it doesn’t make up for a professional review of your encryption system.
The thing about encryption is that there are many subtle ways to get something wrong, even when just implementing it with a well known and trusted library. I took a deep dive course on Designing Secure Encryption for Practical Use and while I learned a ton from it, the main take away for me was that I shouldn’t do it if its intended for serious use. At least not without expert reviewers.
Regarding XMPP, it’s architecture is like email. Anyone can stand up their own server and your User ID looks like an email address: [email protected]. Like email, you can send messages to anyone on any server if you know their ID. Phone numbers are simply never involved.