Add technical rationale document.

README.md

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ hosting a complicated, high-maintenance homeserver or joining an
 existing homeserver for privacy or other reasons, then Telodendria
 might be for you.
 
+> **Note:** Telodendria still in development. See [Status](#status).
+
 ## What is Matrix?
 
 Matrix is an **open standard** for *interoperable*, *decentralized*,
@@ -71,6 +73,19 @@ Telodendria.
 
 ## Status
 
+Telodendria is in the very early stages of development. As such, it may
+not yet deliver on all of its promises. Currently, Telodendria is not
+ready for end-users yet. While it features very basic user
+authentication, it does not actually work as a chat server yet.
+
+We are hoping to ship Telodendria `v0.4.0` by May of 2024. This
+release should be usable for communication between **local users**
+only. Additional features, including federation with other Matrix
+homeservers will be added in future releases.
+
+You can help speed up development by [sponsoring](#sponsorship)
+Telodendria or [getting involved](docs/CONTRIBUTING.md).
+
 ## Sponsorship
 
 Telodendria is maintained by a loosely-knit band of volunteers. The

docs/dev/rationale.md

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+# Rationale
+
+This document seeks to answer the question of "why Telodendria?" from
+a technical perspective by comparing it to existing Matrix homservers.
+Telodendria is written entirely from scratch in ANSI C. It is designed
+to be lightweight, simple, and functional. Telodendria differentiates
+itself from other homeserver implementations because it:
+
+- Is written C, a stable, low-level programming language with a long
+history, low build and runtime overhead, and wide compatibility.
+- Is written with minimalism as a primary design goal. Whenever possible
+and practical, no third-party libraries are pulled into the code.
+Everything Telodnedria needs is custom written. As a result, Telodendria
+depends only on a standard C compiler and a POSIX C library to be
+built, both of which should come with any good Unix-style operating
+system already, which means you shouldn't have to install anything
+additional to use Telodendria.
+- Uses a flat-file directory structure to store data instead of a
+real database. This has a number of advantages:
+    - It make setup and mainenance much easier.
+    - It allows Telodendria to run on systems with fewer resources.
+- Is packaged as a single small, statically-linked and highly-optimized
+binary that can be run just about anywhere. It is designed to be
+extremely easy to set up and consume as few resources as possible.
+- Is permissively licensed. Telodendria is licensed under a modified
+MIT license, which imposes very few restrictions on what you can do
+with it.
+
+## What about [Conduit](https://conduit.rs)?
+
+At this point, you may be wondering why one would prefer Telodendria
+over Conduit, a Matrix homeserver that could also say pretty much
+everything this document has said so far. After all, Conduit is older
+and thus better established, and written in Rust, a Memory Safe™
+programming language.
+
+In this section, we will discuss some additional advantages of
+Telodendria that Conduit lacks.
+
+### Small Dependency Chain
+
+**TODO:** See #30.
+
+### Standardized
+
+**TODO:** See #30.
+
+### Portable
+
+**TODO:** See #30.