4 ms·

Change aversion killed IRC. A lot of the opers on the big networks are extremely conservative and default to poo-pooing ideas because it's simpler. IRC with g

by na85 9y ago

Change aversion killed IRC. A lot of the opers on the big networks are extremely conservative and default to poo-pooing ideas because it's simpler. IRC with good mobile/push support could have taken off, but using it from a mobile device is painful because of the constant drops and the need to have your device responding to ping pongs every few seconds kills your battery.

kuschku 9y ago
> IRC with good mobile/push support could have taken off, but using it from a mobile device is painful because of the constant drops and the need to have your device responding to ping pongs every few seconds kills your battery. You mean, something like IRCCloud, or what I’m moving Quasseldroid to right now?
- na85 9y ago
  Yes, except irc cloud is a 3rd party platform and requires payment as far as I'm aware. "Something like irc cloud" should have been baked into the ircd/protocol so that there's a lower barrier to entry.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Well, Quassel is the same, open source, under GPL, self-hosted. (Disclaimer: I contribute to Quassel occasionally)
    - na85 9y ago
      Again, it needs to be baked into the server, otherwise it's just another barrier to entry.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        That’s not really possible, actually. The push notification systems used by Android and iOS only allow the same person that can authorize updates for an app to send push notifications to this app. This means either every IRC app would need to operate an open gateway for notifications, or you’d need to give every IRC server the same certificate that you use to sign your app updates on the Apple AppStore. Push notifications on mobile devices are designed to only work for situations where the same company controls all servers, and apps.
        na85 9y ago
        Okay, well, now we've discovered a big obstacle to irc adoption on mobile. Things like this are the reason slack and discord ate irc. Most users simply won't sign up for 3 services just to chat.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Well, rather, we've discovered why everything is becoming centralized, not just IRC.
- metabrew 9y ago
  Random irccloud/quassel anecdote for you: when I started working on what is now irccloud, I was originally just going to write a (mobile-)web front end for quassel core, since I was using Quassel on KDE at the time (and had been for some time). This predates Quasseldroid I think, at least I don't remember there being a good mobile app for quassel back then. The protocol between the quassel core and clients looked to be some sort of serialized Qt objects (iirc), so I abandoned that idea and wrote the irc client backend in erlang, with a json protocol.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    The protocol are serialized Qt objects (I've started documenting it), but compared to Json, this gives a huge performance advantage. It's planned to be replaced it with protobuf relatively soon, though.

by na85 9y ago

kuschku 9y ago

> IRC with good mobile/push support could have taken off, but using it from a mobile device is painful because of the constant drops and the need to have your device responding to ping pongs every few seconds kills your battery. You mean, something like IRCCloud, or what I’m moving Quasseldroid to right now?

na85 9y ago
Yes, except irc cloud is a 3rd party platform and requires payment as far as I'm aware. "Something like irc cloud" should have been baked into the ircd/protocol so that there's a lower barrier to entry.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Well, Quassel is the same, open source, under GPL, self-hosted. (Disclaimer: I contribute to Quassel occasionally)
  - na85 9y ago
    Again, it needs to be baked into the server, otherwise it's just another barrier to entry.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      That’s not really possible, actually. The push notification systems used by Android and iOS only allow the same person that can authorize updates for an app to send push notifications to this app. This means either every IRC app would need to operate an open gateway for notifications, or you’d need to give every IRC server the same certificate that you use to sign your app updates on the Apple AppStore. Push notifications on mobile devices are designed to only work for situations where the same company controls all servers, and apps.
      - na85 9y ago
        Okay, well, now we've discovered a big obstacle to irc adoption on mobile. Things like this are the reason slack and discord ate irc. Most users simply won't sign up for 3 services just to chat.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Well, rather, we've discovered why everything is becoming centralized, not just IRC.
metabrew 9y ago
Random irccloud/quassel anecdote for you: when I started working on what is now irccloud, I was originally just going to write a (mobile-)web front end for quassel core, since I was using Quassel on KDE at the time (and had been for some time). This predates Quasseldroid I think, at least I don't remember there being a good mobile app for quassel back then. The protocol between the quassel core and clients looked to be some sort of serialized Qt objects (iirc), so I abandoned that idea and wrote the irc client backend in erlang, with a json protocol.
- kuschku 9y ago
  The protocol are serialized Qt objects (I've started documenting it), but compared to Json, this gives a huge performance advantage. It's planned to be replaced it with protobuf relatively soon, though.