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Funny to see this reposted today, as just today I encountered an open source project which primarily uses Discord for chat - a terrible idea for all the same re

Funny to see this reposted today, as just today I encountered an open source project which primarily uses Discord for chat - a terrible idea for all the same reasons. I had planned on writing a similar follow-up article reminding people that Discord is a bad communication medium for open source projects, too. I think that this is something the community ought to be occasionally reminded of, lest we lapse.

philliphaydon 7y ago
What's wrong with Discord?
- ddevault 7y ago
  All of the same things that are wrong with Slack, discussed in the OP. Don't use nonfree platforms to collaborate on free-as-in-freedom software. They also appropriate "server" terminology to dilute stuff which actually puts the users in control - unlike typical "servers", a Discord server is anything but - they run on Discord infrastructure and the user has little to no influence over their adminsitration.
- armitron 7y ago
  Everything that's wrong with slack, and more. No IRC gateway. Developers are extremely hostile to 3rd party clients. Centralized control. Ownership of your data.
  - rapind 7y ago
    Also Tencent is an investor in Discord if that's a concern for people.
  - birdyrooster 7y ago
    What do you mean by ownership of your data? 1) They own the storage by which the data resides and can dictate how the data is accessed 2) They own your IP
  - gizmo385 7y ago
    > Developers are extremely hostile to 3rd party clients. Example? As someone who has written a library to facilitate creating 3rd party bots, I've never seen anything to suggest this.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      3rd party bots≠3rd party clients. Discord very actively goes after the latter and those who use them.
    - jamesgeck0 7y ago
      Slack has no public API for 3rd party clients; it's strictly for bots. The EULA says they can ban you if you use a 3rd party client. The clients I've seen require you to open browser web dev tools in the browser and copy your API key from the browser session. Even browser CSS modifications are apparently frowned upon.
- robjan 7y ago
  Replace "slack" in that article with "discord"
ben509 7y ago
Is mumble[1] a decent replacement for discord? I like the idea of the immediacy of voice chat for talking over ideas and issues. [1]: https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/
- ddevault 7y ago
  I think so, yes. I also use Jitsi for pre-arranged video/audio chats, as opposed to persistent audio chat channels like Mumble offers.
- AgentME 7y ago
  Live voice chat is just part of Discord.
lifthrasiir 7y ago
I think this is a bit radical claim, but I would avoid any synchronous chatting platform for F/OSS development including IRC, it is simply not worth its cost. IRC is commonly quoted to support the asynchronous mode of chatting but it is somewhat misleading: asynchronocity is embedded to the IRC community and not the protocol. If IRC the protocol were actually asynchronous we would have, for example, a better story for mobile clients by now. Probably Zulip is better at the asynchronous mode, I'm yet to try out. Now it is another story when you consider your clueless end users, who see proprietary platforms as a norm and actively seek the synchronocity ("anybody out there?"). I think you should be in (some of) those platforms in that case, because it is practically more important to help your users. Or maybe not, if you know your users don't like synchronous chat or proprietary platforms anyway. Throughout my history of using IRC, it was most useful as a synchronous Q&A channel and an asynchronous community bookkeeper, both irrelevant to the IRC protocol itself. I don't see why we should pursue IRC further. (Now it is funny that I still operate my own IRC network!)

philliphaydon 7y ago

What's wrong with Discord?

ddevault 7y ago
All of the same things that are wrong with Slack, discussed in the OP. Don't use nonfree platforms to collaborate on free-as-in-freedom software. They also appropriate "server" terminology to dilute stuff which actually puts the users in control - unlike typical "servers", a Discord server is anything but - they run on Discord infrastructure and the user has little to no influence over their adminsitration.
armitron 7y ago
Everything that's wrong with slack, and more. No IRC gateway. Developers are extremely hostile to 3rd party clients. Centralized control. Ownership of your data.
- rapind 7y ago
  Also Tencent is an investor in Discord if that's a concern for people.
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  What do you mean by ownership of your data? 1) They own the storage by which the data resides and can dictate how the data is accessed 2) They own your IP
- gizmo385 7y ago
  > Developers are extremely hostile to 3rd party clients. Example? As someone who has written a library to facilitate creating 3rd party bots, I've never seen anything to suggest this.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    3rd party bots≠3rd party clients. Discord very actively goes after the latter and those who use them.
  - jamesgeck0 7y ago
    Slack has no public API for 3rd party clients; it's strictly for bots. The EULA says they can ban you if you use a 3rd party client. The clients I've seen require you to open browser web dev tools in the browser and copy your API key from the browser session. Even browser CSS modifications are apparently frowned upon.
robjan 7y ago
Replace "slack" in that article with "discord"

ben509 7y ago

Is mumble[1] a decent replacement for discord? I like the idea of the immediacy of voice chat for talking over ideas and issues. [1]: https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/

ddevault 7y ago
I think so, yes. I also use Jitsi for pre-arranged video/audio chats, as opposed to persistent audio chat channels like Mumble offers.
AgentME 7y ago
Live voice chat is just part of Discord.

lifthrasiir 7y ago

I think this is a bit radical claim, but I would avoid any synchronous chatting platform for F/OSS development including IRC, it is simply not worth its cost. IRC is commonly quoted to support the asynchronous mode of chatting but it is somewhat misleading: asynchronocity is embedded to the IRC community and not the protocol. If IRC the protocol were actually asynchronous we would have, for example, a better story for mobile clients by now. Probably Zulip is better at the asynchronous mode, I'm yet to try out. Now it is another story when you consider your clueless end users, who see proprietary platforms as a norm and actively seek the synchronocity ("anybody out there?"). I think you should be in (some of) those platforms in that case, because it is practically more important to help your users. Or maybe not, if you know your users don't like synchronous chat or proprietary platforms anyway. Throughout my history of using IRC, it was most useful as a synchronous Q&A channel and an asynchronous community bookkeeper, both irrelevant to the IRC protocol itself. I don't see why we should pursue IRC further. (Now it is funny that I still operate my own IRC network!)