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> HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. > Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad.

by Fnoord 7y ago

> HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. > Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad. > IRCCloud (which is proprietary, closed source etc.): oh, it's so good, use it. Who exactly is "HN"? How did you even decide "HN" has opinion X or Y? I'm fine with Discord because its mostly used for gaming. Given the previous options (Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Mumble, Skype), it is miles better. And of these, only Mumble is fully FOSS. A clear disadvantage is however privacy-related, but for gaming that isn't a huge issue. What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself, or have the private keys yourself. IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open and there's no vendor lock-in like with Slack/Discord. Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack.

nathanlied 7y ago
I'm not fine with Discord as a replacement for TeamSpeak. I recognise some of its advantages, but the voice quality is absolute garbage when compared to what you can get TeamSpeak to do.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Can you be specific? I don't need high quality voice quality for gaming. I need it to be good enough. I've been content with Ventrilo's GSM voice quality as well. My issue with Ventrilo wasn't the voice quality; it was the lag!!
dmitriid 7y ago
> What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself and immediately: > IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open IRCCloud is a centralised, closed-source entity that stores all your chat logs in the cloud. So, no different than Slack/Discord (with the exception of the protocol). > Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack. How is it worse for Slack? Slack clearly provides value that IRC (and XMPP) don't. I really wish people would try and see why Slack etc. are popular and used (including in commercial settings), and why IRC/XMPP are not.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > IRCCloud is a centralised, closed-source entity that stores all your chat logs in the cloud. So, no different than Slack/Discord (with the exception of the protocol). (A very important exception.) IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client because the protocol is an open standard. Would it be my choice for an IRC client? Hell no. But thanks to the protocol being FOSS: to each their own. Try that with Slack/Discord... > How is it worse for Slack? Because whatever gamers discuss is much less privacy sensitive than whatever businesses (with for example other people's data) discuss. I'm also not really sure why anyone would compare Slack/Discord with IRC or XMPP when its clear that these are so vastly different while there are FOSS, open standard solutions for Slack/Discord in existence such as Mattermost (Slack alternative) and Mumble (Discord alternative). You can't even do audio or video over IRC.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    > (A very important exception.) IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client If just one team member uses IRCCliud for chat, all tgat sensitive info is now stored on IRCCloud’s servers. So, hiw exactly does “open FOSS protocol” help in this case?
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      Because as owners of the server and/or channel you are free to implement a protocol on top of it. On Discord and Slack you do not have such liberty. Heck, Slack killed IRC gateway.
      - dmitriid 7y ago
        Again Back to this statement: > What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself The moment you use IRCCloud all that sensitive data is on IRCCloud’s servers. How does “building a protocol in top of that (on top if what?)” help?

by Fnoord 7y ago

nathanlied 7y ago

I'm not fine with Discord as a replacement for TeamSpeak. I recognise some of its advantages, but the voice quality is absolute garbage when compared to what you can get TeamSpeak to do.

Fnoord 7y ago
Can you be specific? I don't need high quality voice quality for gaming. I need it to be good enough. I've been content with Ventrilo's GSM voice quality as well. My issue with Ventrilo wasn't the voice quality; it was the lag!!

dmitriid 7y ago

> What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself and immediately: > IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open IRCCloud is a centralised, closed-source entity that stores all your chat logs in the cloud. So, no different than Slack/Discord (with the exception of the protocol). > Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack. How is it worse for Slack? Slack clearly provides value that IRC (and XMPP) don't. I really wish people would try and see why Slack etc. are popular and used (including in commercial settings), and why IRC/XMPP are not.

Fnoord 7y ago
> IRCCloud is a centralised, closed-source entity that stores all your chat logs in the cloud. So, no different than Slack/Discord (with the exception of the protocol). (A very important exception.) IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client because the protocol is an open standard. Would it be my choice for an IRC client? Hell no. But thanks to the protocol being FOSS: to each their own. Try that with Slack/Discord... > How is it worse for Slack? Because whatever gamers discuss is much less privacy sensitive than whatever businesses (with for example other people's data) discuss. I'm also not really sure why anyone would compare Slack/Discord with IRC or XMPP when its clear that these are so vastly different while there are FOSS, open standard solutions for Slack/Discord in existence such as Mattermost (Slack alternative) and Mumble (Discord alternative). You can't even do audio or video over IRC.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  > (A very important exception.) IRCCloud just appears to be akin to a BNC. If Bob decides to use IRCCloud or a BNC that is his choice. The rest of the team or group can still use their preferred IRC client If just one team member uses IRCCliud for chat, all tgat sensitive info is now stored on IRCCloud’s servers. So, hiw exactly does “open FOSS protocol” help in this case?
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Because as owners of the server and/or channel you are free to implement a protocol on top of it. On Discord and Slack you do not have such liberty. Heck, Slack killed IRC gateway.
    - dmitriid 7y ago
      Again Back to this statement: > What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself The moment you use IRCCloud all that sensitive data is on IRCCloud’s servers. How does “building a protocol in top of that (on top if what?)” help?