10 ms·

Discord does not allow 3rd party clients

61 points by mepholic 8y ago

mepholic 8y ago
Just mirroring the thread here in case the Discord Inc. overlords decide they don't like the bad PR. Title: Ripcord - unofficial native Discord client. No Electron, no rounded userpics (Staff reply) >> This sounds like a good way of getting your account banned, or am I mistaken about the API rules? > You are not mistaken. We do not support 3rd party clients, and they are not allowed per our ToS/API ToS. (Staff Reply) This is honestly unacceptable. On this page here: https://discordapp.com/open-source https://discordapp.com/open-source You claim that "Discord ️ Open Source". If this were true, than Discord Inc. would recognize that not all Open Source developers run x86_64 machines, and of those that do, not all of them use glibc as their system standard C library. The fact that both Discord's standalone desktop application (which uses Electron; a resource hog on its own) and the in-browser version of the app are both massive resource hogs prevents those who are not well off and do not have modern computer equipment from using the service. Additionally, Discord's web application fails to successfully function in most Linux web browsers that I've found. This includes Firefox ESR and Otter on x86_64 using musl libc. Text chat hardly works in Firefox, as the entire interface goes blank and acts like it's refreshing on a fairly regular basis; the login page doesn't even load in Otter. To even think that voice chat would function under these circumstances is a straight up joke; and sure enough, voice chat fails to function for reasons OTHER than the one stated above on both ALSA-only AND PulseAudio configurations: I cannot get it to detect my microphone (granted, Firefox's terrible, or rather, complete lack of an audio configuration interface is probably more to blame here) The fact that Discord Inc. is threatening to ban users who use 3rd party clients just adds insult to injury. If Discord Inc. is really not willing to provide open and portable solutions to use their service to their users, they should at least allow 3rd parties to offer such solutions. The entire stance of "YOU MUST USE OUR CLIENT" makes me have one of two thoughts: 1. Discord Inc. is embedding Information Gathering code into their own clients, and wants to make sure that they can collect and sell information on ALL of their users; 2. Discord Inc. is not confident in the reliability and robustness of their server infrastructure, and therefore wants to limit which applications hit their _public_ API's. Long story short, what I'm seeing here is a complete lack of customer obsession; it really seems like Discord Inc. doesn't actually care about their users.
- danielvf 8y ago
  (The client in the reddit post isn’t open source.)
  - mepholic 8y ago
    That's hardly the point. I disagree with cancel's distribution methods, and lack of providing the client as open-source; I would even go as far as to say that taking the position of "eventually charging for it" is probably one of the reasons why Discord has this policy in the first place. The fact of the matter is though, that these policies are destructive to any potential open-source innovation that would be to happen as well. I understand that writing code is an artform that takes lots of practice and patience and also deserves a lot of praise. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to make money off of their code. I DO think that support contracts are generally a more reasonable way of achieving this goal. My problem with cancel's decision is that they're saying they may eventually charge users for an application which in all likelihood will get them banned as a result of Discord Inc.'s crappy ToS.
- bovermyer 8y ago
  You don't have to use Discord.
  - mepholic 8y ago
    This is probably the best solution for crappy business tactics in the end.
  - koreajim 8y ago
    ...Unless you want to talk to all of the friends who refuse to use other services.
    - scient 8y ago
      Then use their client. Its a free service, what are you complaining about.
microsuck 8y ago
The only reason I'm not using discord is exactly because they have no native client but this electron crap
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  I've gone back to IRC and created some Signal groups. Slack, Discord, and all of these new chat applications are frankly abominations.
gregknicholson 8y ago
The Discord client may be open source, but Discord can apply whatever terms of service they like to their server. So just set up your own server using their open source server software, which surely they must have released under the AGPL, because they weren't just using “open source” as a buzzword. ...Yeah. The client software being open source is irrelevant if it relies on a single proprietary server. Choose open standards instead, or AGPL'd server software.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- beagle3 8y ago
  > he client software being open source is irrelevant if it relies on a single proprietary server. At least you can make sure it doesn't send information it isn't supposed to send to that server - say, audio when you weren't intending, or screenshots. It's not good enough for server independence, but it is way better than closed everything.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    That's a good point.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Not really. You could reasonably easily reverse engineer the server side too based on how the client uses it. (scalability is important though) It is better not to have to do that.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    You could, but that's still lots of work, and you'd constantly be chasing incompatibilities with Discord's servers. At this point you may as well just use an open standard instead.
homu505 8y ago
I've been using userscripts and stylesheets with browser plugins to tweak their webapp.
- mepholic 8y ago
  I wonder if this is also disallowed by their ToS.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Most likely, but who honestly cares about a ToS?
    - aepiepaey 8y ago
      People who don't want to get banned due to breach of ToS (since that would cause them to lose contact with friends).
  - aepiepaey 8y ago
    It is.
fenwick67 8y ago
The reason for this should be obvious - discord has no profit model right now and wants to make sure they can monetize down the road. I've heard them say they may introduce premium features that require payment. If you make a client that can replicate these features (like custom emojis or whatever), they might lose money.
- mepholic 8y ago
  They already have Discord Turbo. I agree that it's likely because their profit model is on shaky grounds, which makes me wonder: why do it in the first place? What other avenues do that have for monetization? Could they potentially be collecting user data, chat logs, or voice recordings to potentially monetize off of down the road? Might they decide to start automatically injecting targeted ad content into chat sessions?
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    As with most of these "lose money now, make money later" startups, I think Discord's longterm goal is to get bought out. I don't see any way they can turn a profit. If they charge for hosting servers, they'll lose a large number of servers (people will just consolidate). If they charge for quality, users will start leaving for the oldguard services (Teamspeak/Mumble). Persistent text chat is definitely a plus, but all it would take is for one of the slack clones to have a mumble client built in for there to be a free/easy alternative. Or people to just go back to a groupme/whatsapp and a voice service.
legooolas 8y ago
RIP bitlbee-discord :(
ddevault 8y ago
Throwing your lot in with Discord, Slack, Skype, etc - is a huge mistake. They serve their own interests, not yours. Use open platforms and open protocols or you will inevitably regret it. Your incentives and Discord's incentives are misaligned.
- polski-g 8y ago
  Yep. Use MatterMost self-hosted at worst, or something simple like OpenFire/XMPP
  - mepholic 8y ago
    I've never heard of MatterMost. It's good to see that there's an open-source alternative out there with a similar interface. I've never really given XMPP a fair rap... Maybe it's time again to check if any decent implementations have popped up. If anyone can recommend any other open platforms for me and the other concerned readers of this post, that would be highly appreciated. In my mind, federation is a pretty important feature, as it allows you the possibility to bridge the gap between all the disparate chat systems we currently have. Chat bifurcation is a major issue that is serving to help divide us all.
  - tdb7893 8y ago
    The problem is that neither of those really seem to fill the shoes of Discord for us. In Discord I can do text chats, voice chat, can post gifs, and can even screen share. It also does all of that with no requirements for hardware or setup on my part.
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      Yeah that's the issue with most self-hosted solutions. Pretty invariably they're either a pain to setup, require someone to provide an always on server (either in their house or pay someone else to host), or are hideous/missing major features. Discord does well because it requires pretty much zero setup on my part to have a place where me and my friends can chat while playing games! Personally availability was always a major issue to me when it came to older self hosted solutions, with Discord I don't have to worry if group B has someone willing to bother hosting because it's always there hosted on Discord's servers and if something happened we don't suddenly lose our hub and chat.
Grue3 8y ago
Non-electron client would certainly be a big winner for Discord. They should hire the guy and rewrite their memory-hogging app.
mark_edward 8y ago
Of some note: some Rust core teams have already moved, piecemeal, official core team discussions to Discord, and are trying to get this done in a broad way: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/exploring-new-communication-channels/7859/74 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/exploring-new-communicatio...
- bytematic 8y ago
  It is essentially slack with voice chat.

61 points by mepholic 8y ago

Just mirroring the thread here in case the Discord Inc. overlords decide they don't like the bad PR. Title: Ripcord - unofficial native Discord client. No Electron, no rounded userpics (Staff reply) >> This sounds like a good way of getting your account banned, or am I mistaken about the API rules? > You are not mistaken. We do not support 3rd party clients, and they are not allowed per our ToS/API ToS. (Staff Reply) This is honestly unacceptable. On this page here: https://discordapp.com/open-source https://discordapp.com/open-source You claim that "Discord ️ Open Source". If this were true, than Discord Inc. would recognize that not all Open Source developers run x86_64 machines, and of those that do, not all of them use glibc as their system standard C library. The fact that both Discord's standalone desktop application (which uses Electron; a resource hog on its own) and the in-browser version of the app are both massive resource hogs prevents those who are not well off and do not have modern computer equipment from using the service. Additionally, Discord's web application fails to successfully function in most Linux web browsers that I've found. This includes Firefox ESR and Otter on x86_64 using musl libc. Text chat hardly works in Firefox, as the entire interface goes blank and acts like it's refreshing on a fairly regular basis; the login page doesn't even load in Otter. To even think that voice chat would function under these circumstances is a straight up joke; and sure enough, voice chat fails to function for reasons OTHER than the one stated above on both ALSA-only AND PulseAudio configurations: I cannot get it to detect my microphone (granted, Firefox's terrible, or rather, complete lack of an audio configuration interface is probably more to blame here) The fact that Discord Inc. is threatening to ban users who use 3rd party clients just adds insult to injury. If Discord Inc. is really not willing to provide open and portable solutions to use their service to their users, they should at least allow 3rd parties to offer such solutions. The entire stance of "YOU MUST USE OUR CLIENT" makes me have one of two thoughts: 1. Discord Inc. is embedding Information Gathering code into their own clients, and wants to make sure that they can collect and sell information on ALL of their users; 2. Discord Inc. is not confident in the reliability and robustness of their server infrastructure, and therefore wants to limit which applications hit their _public_ API's. Long story short, what I'm seeing here is a complete lack of customer obsession; it really seems like Discord Inc. doesn't actually care about their users.

danielvf 8y ago
(The client in the reddit post isn’t open source.)
- mepholic 8y ago
  That's hardly the point. I disagree with cancel's distribution methods, and lack of providing the client as open-source; I would even go as far as to say that taking the position of "eventually charging for it" is probably one of the reasons why Discord has this policy in the first place. The fact of the matter is though, that these policies are destructive to any potential open-source innovation that would be to happen as well. I understand that writing code is an artform that takes lots of practice and patience and also deserves a lot of praise. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to make money off of their code. I DO think that support contracts are generally a more reasonable way of achieving this goal. My problem with cancel's decision is that they're saying they may eventually charge users for an application which in all likelihood will get them banned as a result of Discord Inc.'s crappy ToS.
bovermyer 8y ago
You don't have to use Discord.
- mepholic 8y ago
  This is probably the best solution for crappy business tactics in the end.
- koreajim 8y ago
  ...Unless you want to talk to all of the friends who refuse to use other services.
  - scient 8y ago
    Then use their client. Its a free service, what are you complaining about.

microsuck 8y ago

The only reason I'm not using discord is exactly because they have no native client but this electron crap

prolikewh0a 8y ago
I've gone back to IRC and created some Signal groups. Slack, Discord, and all of these new chat applications are frankly abominations.

gregknicholson 8y ago

The Discord client may be open source, but Discord can apply whatever terms of service they like to their server. So just set up your own server using their open source server software, which surely they must have released under the AGPL, because they weren't just using “open source” as a buzzword. ...Yeah. The client software being open source is irrelevant if it relies on a single proprietary server. Choose open standards instead, or AGPL'd server software.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
beagle3 8y ago
> he client software being open source is irrelevant if it relies on a single proprietary server. At least you can make sure it doesn't send information it isn't supposed to send to that server - say, audio when you weren't intending, or screenshots. It's not good enough for server independence, but it is way better than closed everything.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  That's a good point.
AstralStorm 8y ago
Not really. You could reasonably easily reverse engineer the server side too based on how the client uses it. (scalability is important though) It is better not to have to do that.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  You could, but that's still lots of work, and you'd constantly be chasing incompatibilities with Discord's servers. At this point you may as well just use an open standard instead.

homu505 8y ago

I've been using userscripts and stylesheets with browser plugins to tweak their webapp.

mepholic 8y ago
I wonder if this is also disallowed by their ToS.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Most likely, but who honestly cares about a ToS?
  - aepiepaey 8y ago
    People who don't want to get banned due to breach of ToS (since that would cause them to lose contact with friends).
- aepiepaey 8y ago
  It is.

fenwick67 8y ago

The reason for this should be obvious - discord has no profit model right now and wants to make sure they can monetize down the road. I've heard them say they may introduce premium features that require payment. If you make a client that can replicate these features (like custom emojis or whatever), they might lose money.

mepholic 8y ago
They already have Discord Turbo. I agree that it's likely because their profit model is on shaky grounds, which makes me wonder: why do it in the first place? What other avenues do that have for monetization? Could they potentially be collecting user data, chat logs, or voice recordings to potentially monetize off of down the road? Might they decide to start automatically injecting targeted ad content into chat sessions?
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  As with most of these "lose money now, make money later" startups, I think Discord's longterm goal is to get bought out. I don't see any way they can turn a profit. If they charge for hosting servers, they'll lose a large number of servers (people will just consolidate). If they charge for quality, users will start leaving for the oldguard services (Teamspeak/Mumble). Persistent text chat is definitely a plus, but all it would take is for one of the slack clones to have a mumble client built in for there to be a free/easy alternative. Or people to just go back to a groupme/whatsapp and a voice service.

legooolas 8y ago

RIP bitlbee-discord :(

ddevault 8y ago

Throwing your lot in with Discord, Slack, Skype, etc - is a huge mistake. They serve their own interests, not yours. Use open platforms and open protocols or you will inevitably regret it. Your incentives and Discord's incentives are misaligned.

polski-g 8y ago
Yep. Use MatterMost self-hosted at worst, or something simple like OpenFire/XMPP
- mepholic 8y ago
  I've never heard of MatterMost. It's good to see that there's an open-source alternative out there with a similar interface. I've never really given XMPP a fair rap... Maybe it's time again to check if any decent implementations have popped up. If anyone can recommend any other open platforms for me and the other concerned readers of this post, that would be highly appreciated. In my mind, federation is a pretty important feature, as it allows you the possibility to bridge the gap between all the disparate chat systems we currently have. Chat bifurcation is a major issue that is serving to help divide us all.
- tdb7893 8y ago
  The problem is that neither of those really seem to fill the shoes of Discord for us. In Discord I can do text chats, voice chat, can post gifs, and can even screen share. It also does all of that with no requirements for hardware or setup on my part.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    Yeah that's the issue with most self-hosted solutions. Pretty invariably they're either a pain to setup, require someone to provide an always on server (either in their house or pay someone else to host), or are hideous/missing major features. Discord does well because it requires pretty much zero setup on my part to have a place where me and my friends can chat while playing games! Personally availability was always a major issue to me when it came to older self hosted solutions, with Discord I don't have to worry if group B has someone willing to bother hosting because it's always there hosted on Discord's servers and if something happened we don't suddenly lose our hub and chat.

Grue3 8y ago

Non-electron client would certainly be a big winner for Discord. They should hire the guy and rewrite their memory-hogging app.

mark_edward 8y ago

Of some note: some Rust core teams have already moved, piecemeal, official core team discussions to Discord, and are trying to get this done in a broad way: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/exploring-new-communication-channels/7859/74 https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/exploring-new-communicatio...

bytematic 8y ago
It is essentially slack with voice chat.