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Candidates for Mozilla's IRC Successor
- client4 7y agoKeybase Chat would make a solid choice as well. *I work for Keybase, but chose to work here because I love the mission / product.
- corndoge 7y agoKeybase chat doesn't have a server client available. It is nothing like IRC.
- Avamander 7y agoActually there's a bot available https://github.com/keybase/bot-sshca https://github.com/keybase/bot-sshca in addition to the regular CLI API keybase has.
- emptysongglass 7y agoI love Keybase. I wish it was fully open source though. And that group chats weren't slow as sin.
- Avamander 7y agoYeah, it has some usability concerns, not yet at the level of Slack for large group work or onboarding speed, but I've found it very good for smaller groups of people and the rest of the features they've built on it are very cool and useful (at least for me).
- bloopernova 7y agoMy choice would be Keybase, or at least something that uses Keybase as its back-end in some way. Just want to say that I adore Keybase. I think it needs a password manager like bitwarden/lastpass/1password, but a lot of the features are compelling to me. I really hope it gets widespread adoption because the app and the company deserve it, in my opinion.
- bhhaskin 7y agoWhy move away from IRC at all? If it ain't broken why "fix" it.
- regnerba 7y agoFor a lot of people IRC is "broken" when compared to modern alternatives. I personally really dislike using IRC. I am in several IRC channels because some open source projects I use and upstream code to are on IRC. I dislike it very much.
- bityard 7y agoWhy?
- TylerE 7y agoNo persistent presence, no true source-of-truth logging, bad authentiation - I mean, there's really nothing good about IRC unless you have a fetish for late '90s tech.
- regnerba 7y agoExcited to see what the results of their Matrix PoC. I have been a big fan of Matrix for a while.
- Dowwie 7y agoWrite the server you wish you had, in Rust. Everyone will help. It will be great. Open source all the way.
- nixpulvis 7y agoIf I'm not mistaken, there's a fully functional Matrix server written in Rust already (for example): https://github.com/ruma/ruma https://github.com/ruma/ruma Implementing a protocol in Rust is one thing, the choice in protocol is another. I for one hope they choose a standard that's backed by the OSS community (not slack), so we can all have fun with Rust implementations in peace.
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoIt's not fully functional yet, would love to see more contributors hack on it though.
- opencl 7y agoGNOME also has a Matrix client written in Rust: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal
- swalladge 7y agoIt's great to see 3/4 of the options are open source! Whatever happens, I really hope the community get behind the open source options and don't let more things get eaten up by commercial silos cough slack cough. I'm partial towards Matrix/Riot.im - the progress made on those projects is awesome and they really have a highly usable product, with bonuses such as e2e encryption and federation.
- Ardon 7y agoThere's a fair bit of weight getting behind Matrix too, with the french government starting to use it for internal communication.
- nixpulvis 7y agoYea! My next prospective smartphone is doubling down on Matrix: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/24/the-librem-5-from-purism-a-matrix-native-smartphone/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/24/the-librem-5-from-purism-...
- 22c 7y ago> they really have a highly usable product Setting up a Matrix server is a lot harder than you might think, especially when you start talking about federation and identity management. The mxisd[1] project has recently disbanded due to what I believe to be philosophical differences with the Matrix maintainers vision of identity management. I like a lot of things about Riot/Synapse, but I would suggest you try setting up your own Matrix server if you haven't yet. It's not what I would call highly usable. Mind you, I have only tried setting up the reference implementation (Synapse/Riot). I would be interested in seeing a write-up/comparison done by Mozilla as part of these trials. [1] https://github.com/kamax-matrix/mxisd https://github.com/kamax-matrix/mxisd
- jeethsuresh 7y agoI've actually had the opposite experience - it was easy enough to download/set up, and then it was just a matter of getting the letsencrypt daemon on the box to manage certs. That said, I went in with pretty low expectations since it's a reference implementation - I think one of the great advantages of the open-source protocol is that anyone can design/build their own implementations with better UX on the sysadmin side. There are already projects in the works written in golang/rust, and I'm sure if the protocol takes off other languages will follow. I do agree that the identity server piece is weird. I didn't set one of these up, so I haven't really looked into it (I don't have any 3rd party IDs connected to my matrix username, which from my cursory research is what the identity servers are for) but the philosophy behind them seems to go against the federation narrative the rest of the protocol is designed around. If anyone has done more research into this part of the protocol I'd love to be corrected on this point.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gtirloni 7y agoMaybe Mozilla can put its weight behind Matrix and create a decent client that grandparents can use.
- silon42 7y agoIntegrate it into Thunderbird Chat... when I used it for gtalk/XMPP it was completely acceptable for basic use.
- Arathorn 7y agothunderbird has a primordial matrix plugin already, but it’s very much a proof of concept. there are plans to make it much more :)
- mxuribe 7y agoI didn't know about the matrix plugin for Thunderbird chat! Now THIS would be awesome! Beyond the regular, dedicated clients for matrix, this type of partnership/integration is what Mozilla and (other FOSS) folks outside the matrix/riot org. should try and advocate for. Sure, this brings increased usage of matrix clients, platforms, but could also bring more eyes to the overall matrix project - continuing a virtuous cycle!
- esotericn 7y agoI have full faith that, if I had left a computer running, in the corner of my home, with an IRC client open, it would have been able to maintain a connection to Freenode (not continuously, but just work) for fifteen or more years. Personally I don't think IRC will ever be replaced. Well, it will, but it'll happen when my generation dies and gets fully replaced with the New Shiny. I _hope_ that some sort of real, proper standard, that doesn't endlessly reinvent itself, that isn't subject to some for-profit bollocks, that on a very basic level, has like, a standard, has _clients_ (not just one wanky proprietary web frontend) that just sits and gets the job done like TCP, comes out of all of this. Meanwhile, I'm fairly sure IRC will still be there in another fifteen. Hell, at this point, IRC has been a constant in my life for longer than everything other than family. It actually feels like a friend. A portal to another quirky world, just as it did all those years ago. I think it's almost two decades now since I first logged in. My my. The years are short, indeed.
- zanny 7y agoI started reading up Ruma sources with the intent to start contributing when I'm done with my current work (and when async lands in stable). Hopefully it (and maybe Dendrite) will be able to provide your 15 years of uptime on the client side in the future.
- myself248 7y agoOh, yeah. A little longer than that, here My freenode nick was registered in 2005, and I know that's the "new" registration since I accidentally confused the nickserv RELEASE and DROP commands once, and had to re-register the nick I had just mistakenly unregistered. It had a few years of history prior to 2005, but I don't know the details anymore. And prior to Freenode, I was on a few other networks going back to '94 or so. But moving networks meant it wasn't a "constant" in terms of being the same environment, just the same interface. We're not the only ones who feel that IRC will be around until we're gone... https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/
- jjcm 7y agoDie? No, but it is slowly degrading. More and more the people in my old freenode chatrooms are idle or simply leaving. We've gotten so used to phone notifications and a persistent history, that IRC has fallen behind purely from a convenience factor. It's rock solid in what it does, I have zero doubt about that or your 15 year claim. But even if the protocol works, if the user base isn't being added to it will die eventually.
- mr_vile 7y agoI think there are three problems here: first is that the new generation of developers that Mozilla is trying to attract are not used to systems which do not persistently store data in an API-accessible database backend. Second that there is a perception of plain text as an antiquated medium of communication (and yet we persistently reinvent markdown as a way of simplifying rich text). Third and most importantly, the issue is not that IRC is old or is missing features, it is that IRC encodes a specific model for running a communication network (hubs, leafs, operators, etc). When we try and replace IRC with a system like Matrix we are giving up the old model of "owned" nodes and the decentralised nature of it to instead bow to a centralised model where certain people wield absolute power. Is this really the right way? what if I want to write a bot to perform some unusual administrative function? do I have keep updating it every time the API changes? that's why IRC is good, I don't need to do that.
- joepie91_ 7y agoHuh? Matrix isn't a centralised model at all, quite the contrary. If anything, it's less centralised than IRC.
- EamonnMR 7y agoReally excited to see Discord rejected. Watching Discord take over open source and free culture communities has been disheartening to say the least.
- keyle 7y agoI've never heard of this but I'm not particularly in the field... Can you expand?
- DeepYogurt 7y agoRust is moving from irc to discord as a result of mozilla sunsetting their irc server. I know one datapoint is not a trend, but it's a high profile datapoint.
- kzrdude 7y agoRust has already moved to discord, but it's subject to evaluation and might as well change.
- M2Ys4U 7y agoI doubt it'll change. The Rust team simply don't care about privacy. They've been knowingly and willingly violating the GDPR since it came in to force despite constant reminders of that fact.
- calcifer 7y ago> They've been knowingly and willingly violating the GDPR That's quite the inflamatory statement to throw out there without at least providing a source or two.
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoI'm guessing they are talking about this issue which has been open for a disturbingly long time: https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io/issues/955 https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io/issues/955
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wetpaws 7y agoWhy the hell they have slack and not discord eludes me.
- robjan 7y agoYou're right. Neither of them are good candidates.
- frenchy 7y agoAs per the article: "Discord’s terms of service, particularly with respect to the rights they assert over participants’ data, are expansive and very grabby, effectively giving them unlimited rights to do anything they want with anything we put into their service. Coupling that with their active hostility towards interoperability and alternative clients has disqualified them as a community platform."
- Dylan16807 7y agoThey even made customizing the Discord client in any way against the ToS. The hostility toward interop is the one thing I really dislike about them. They do so much else well.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- shmerl 7y agoWhy are they even considering Slack which is a proprietary IM service? Come on, they are Mozilla. Matrix which is federated and is proposed like a "better XMPP" is more like it.
- cwyers 7y agoWhy should federation play into anything here? This is specifically something for people to talk to each other under the auspices of Mozilla's work efforts.
- shmerl 7y agoNon federated IMs are a major problem. So using them means proliferating this issue, instead of fixing it. It's not solved, because major players refuse to solve it even though they can. When Mozilla uses stuff like that, it gives them endorsement.
- aidenn0 7y agoI'm surprised jabber wasn't even mentioned in the "also ran" section.
- floatingatoll 7y agoCould you share more about why you are surprised?
- lima 7y agoMirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20190912012052/https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/09/06/forward-motion/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190912012052/https://exple.tiv...
- Nasreddin_Hodja 7y agoI've read somewhere that matrix server uses too much RAM due to bad design. Personally I'd prefer XMPP.
- dijit 7y agoIt's not a bad design, it's just the reference implementation is python based, and, well, a reference implementation; so they don't do too much for optimisations and focus instead on readability. When Matrix as a protocol settles more, we'll start seeing optimised versions of the server, I'm certain of it.
- ptman 7y agodendrite, the next-gen server written in go, made good progress this summer thanks to GSoC, but contributions are always welcome
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoThe current reference implementation, Synapse (Python) seems to take up around 2GB of RAM, Dendrite (Golang) rn uses up to 100MB according to Matthew (project lead). Note that Dendrite is still a WIP. Currently I don't think anyone is too sure about how Ruma (Rust) would perform as it is still very early in development.
- lima 7y agoI'm sad to see Zulip excluded from the list. It solves the #1 issue with large group chats - proper threading. Nothing worse than waking up to a 1000 message backlog you have to sort through to filter out the information relevant to you. Except for Slack, all of their other choices have very poor threading. They said they had trouble to get it working behind IAM, but Zulip is just a Django application. Surely there's a Django authenticator for Mozilla IAM? I would be very happy to help set it up.
- buboard 7y ago> but Zulip is just a Django application. Yet again: > The installer expects Zulip to be the only thing running on the system; it will install system packages with apt (like nginx, postgresql, and redis) and configure them for its own use. We strongly recommend using either a fresh machine instance in a cloud provider, a fresh VM, or a dedicated machine. If you decide to disregard our advice and use a server that hosts other services, we can’t support you, but we do have some notes on issues you’ll encounter.
- dsr_ 7y agoMozilla is large enough that they could go over to the Zulip developers and ask nicely for what they need, and stand a good chance of getting it.
- hendry 7y ago10 bucks on Slack https://youtu.be/xJ2XUNvbJtg https://youtu.be/xJ2XUNvbJtg
- buboard 7y agoSlack, really? There should be a petition to get them to use ( and thus improve) an open source one, maybe matrix or even rocketchat.
- Melkie678 7y agogood
- Melkie678 7y agothe best
- denton-scratch 7y agoWhy does IRC need a successor?
- floatingatoll 7y agoThat is answered here: http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/05/14/the-next-part-of-the-process/ http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/05/14/the-next-part-of-the-...
- mxuribe 7y agoMan, i sure hope they go the route of matrix! Between the French government and Mozilla both potentially using matrix, would send a great and strong signal to the world, that matrix can work for everyone! Fingers crossed!
- bloopernova 7y agoIt's interesting to me that no-one here mentions Mattermost. Is it not in widespread use?
- rbanffy 7y agoAdoption of IRCv3 by someone like Mozilla could be the push it needs.
- thom 7y agoClicked on this thinking Mozilla were backing a new, more secure and usable version of a protocol _like_ IRC, and disappointed with the reality.
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoThey can make it a reality by backing the Matrix.org protocol, or even Ruma, the Rust implementation.
- thom 7y agoInteresting. Any good resources on Matrix? How has adoption been going until now?
- oehtXRwMkIs 7y agoFrance and KDE are probably the two most well known adopters rn last time I heard. https://matrix.org https://matrix.org explains the protocol, and if you join the MatrixHQ room (#matrix:matrix.org) you can ask all you want, lots of people around to answer, and even Matthew (project lead) is often on there too.
- Arathorn 7y agoAdoption is going pretty well - from matrix.org we see around 10M mxids out there, of which around 5M are on the matrix.org server. Many of these on the matrix.org server are bridged from other systems (Slack, IRC, etc), but 3.5M are native to Matrix. It's hard to guess how big the wider network is because there are many folks who don't phone home or federate actively with matrix.org.
- zomg 7y agothinking out loud here, but has anyone built a solution on top of IRC, effectively "extending" it? to me (i'm not a developer, so pardon me while i speak out of turn here) it would make a lot of sense to take the solid, well known foundation of IRC and build upon it, instead of reinventing the wheel over and over again, no?
- Lightkey 7y agoIt's probably not a good example but that is what Twitch did, you can connect to their video channels with standard IRC clients (without the added "features" like paid subscription picture "emotes").
- fouc 7y agoIf the author of this blog post reads this: Based on your earlier article, you mentioned the issue of spam. Slack is even worse than IRC for spam controls, I've seen spammers be hugely disruptive when the admins aren't around. It could be partially solved with bots, but that doesn't stop PM spam. I looked at the docs for mattermost, riot.im, and rocket.chat. Seems like rocket.chat has the best docs and lots of fine-grained control about permissions and also has rate limiting. Mattermost also has rate limiting (but API level only?) but their docs are horrible. Riot.im doesn't seem to have any controls.
- Arathorn 7y agoMatrix/Riot has a lot of anti-abuse stuff fwiw - https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation has more details, and we're about to launch a shared blacklist feature in addition.