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That is a client/software problem, not a problem that needs to be replaced with complicated solutions. You're fixing the wrong problem and then shitting on the

That is a client/software problem, not a problem that needs to be replaced with complicated solutions. You're fixing the wrong problem and then shitting on the previous implementation without taking the effort to resolve the issues there. Not to mention IRC has plenty of web UI clients that make usage simple, so that point itself is moot.

st3fan 7y ago
It is actually a people problem. The move away from IRC has a lot to do with abuse and harassment.
Klonoar 7y ago
This is simply false, as proven by the numerous clients that have tried and failed to build on top of IRC. Every single thread about this kind of stuff has an IRC devote crawl out of the woodwork. I get it: I grew up on IRC as well. You gotta accept what people (and organizations, like Mozilla, who clearly outlined their reasoning publicly before doing this) need.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
> That is a client/software problem How, with existing IRC networks, and without requiring each user to have their own server somewhere or pay for a third-party service, do you get persistent history and the ability to message people who aren't currently online? That's table-stakes for chat services; there are many more things where that comes from, but that by itself is enough reason.
- detaro 7y ago
  By hosting a web client for free? Just like Mozilla contracts the Matrix folks (at least I think Modular.im is closely connected to core devs) to host a web matrix client at https://chat.mozilla.org/ https://chat.mozilla.org/. Or offer a full hosted bouncer a la IRCCloud (Although their default pricing wouldn't be tenable for this)
  - rakoo 7y ago
    So it wouldn't be IRC anymore, it would be MozillaChat whose backend happens to be IRC, but that is irrelevant. If the functionality is only available in a single client, might as well use a proprietary protocol and client. What matrix is providing on chat.mozilla.org is an easy to use interface for people who want simple access, but I'm pretty sure it's expected that in the longer term people use their own client on their own homeserver and just connect to mozilla.
    - detaro 7y ago
      Mozilla hosting a client or a bouncer for people that do not run their own does not mean not allowing other people to use their own ...
      - rakoo 7y ago
        But then you lose _all_ the features we're talking about, because they're all implemented in the client. Back to square one.
    - tapland 7y ago
      It wouldn't be single client. I don't see Matrix really solving anything. If anything, the non technical user will sign in and ge greeted with > Welcome to the Mozilla community Matrix instance. You can sign in to connect directly to this server, or connect from other Matrix instances through federation. Maybe they select a chat and have to read through the ToS as well? This is a lot more convoluted than any IRC web-client I've seen the last decade. And their 1k user chat room has as much activity as the 30 people IRC ones I'm connected to, and is the sahara desert compared to the larger ones. IT doesn't help to have a user list of 1k and no way to show the active users you actually interact with.
      - detaro 7y ago
        You'd have some of that either way, since required accounts and people acknowledging terms is something Mozilla explicitly wanted here.
MaulingMonkey 7y ago
Basic auth processes varying wildly by server is a server/protocol problem, not a client problem, that also manifests itself as /command spam, even if IRC3 theoretically solves some of that. Web UIs don't fix that. It also doesn't terribly matter where in the IRC ecosystem the problems lie - the problems exist in said ecosystem, and they've not been effectively fixed. I've tried plenty of web UI clients, and have found them all quite unfortunately mediocre at best. For my part, I've gone so far as to write my own custom IRC client from scratch at one point to fix clientside issues I had - and written my share of utility bots - so hopefully I have some credence when I say I've done my part to try and resolve issues. And yet, I've jumped ship to Discord. Single signin, plenty of customization through bots, history, emoji, inline code blocks... sure, these could all theoretically be solved in IRC with infinite time and energy, but in practice they simply haven't been - and based on the trajectory of the past decade, won't be fixed within my lifetime either. Which leads me to think it's not entirely a technology problem, either. Switching away from the ossified IRC ecosystem may at least partially be a social solution disguised as a technical one. While I'm personally quite skeptical of Matrix as a solution, I applaud the attempt and the experiment. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong.
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
IRC has far more problems than just ugly clients. The largest one is that it requires holding open a connection constantly to work. This is fine in the age of desktop computers but totally unacceptable in the age of laptops and mobile. People also demand the features that modern protocols provide such as image uploading, encryption, profile pictures, etc. While a lot of this stuff can often technically be done on IRC, it never works as well and requires knowledge of how to set it all up. On matrix with the default client, it all just works. We can repeat the discussion about how dropbox is useless when you could just set up a ftp server on a vps or we could recognize that people like software that does what they want by default.

st3fan 7y ago

It is actually a people problem. The move away from IRC has a lot to do with abuse and harassment.

Klonoar 7y ago

This is simply false, as proven by the numerous clients that have tried and failed to build on top of IRC. Every single thread about this kind of stuff has an IRC devote crawl out of the woodwork. I get it: I grew up on IRC as well. You gotta accept what people (and organizations, like Mozilla, who clearly outlined their reasoning publicly before doing this) need.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

> That is a client/software problem How, with existing IRC networks, and without requiring each user to have their own server somewhere or pay for a third-party service, do you get persistent history and the ability to message people who aren't currently online? That's table-stakes for chat services; there are many more things where that comes from, but that by itself is enough reason.

detaro 7y ago
By hosting a web client for free? Just like Mozilla contracts the Matrix folks (at least I think Modular.im is closely connected to core devs) to host a web matrix client at https://chat.mozilla.org/ https://chat.mozilla.org/. Or offer a full hosted bouncer a la IRCCloud (Although their default pricing wouldn't be tenable for this)
- rakoo 7y ago
  So it wouldn't be IRC anymore, it would be MozillaChat whose backend happens to be IRC, but that is irrelevant. If the functionality is only available in a single client, might as well use a proprietary protocol and client. What matrix is providing on chat.mozilla.org is an easy to use interface for people who want simple access, but I'm pretty sure it's expected that in the longer term people use their own client on their own homeserver and just connect to mozilla.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Mozilla hosting a client or a bouncer for people that do not run their own does not mean not allowing other people to use their own ...
    - rakoo 7y ago
      But then you lose _all_ the features we're talking about, because they're all implemented in the client. Back to square one.
  - tapland 7y ago
    It wouldn't be single client. I don't see Matrix really solving anything. If anything, the non technical user will sign in and ge greeted with > Welcome to the Mozilla community Matrix instance. You can sign in to connect directly to this server, or connect from other Matrix instances through federation. Maybe they select a chat and have to read through the ToS as well? This is a lot more convoluted than any IRC web-client I've seen the last decade. And their 1k user chat room has as much activity as the 30 people IRC ones I'm connected to, and is the sahara desert compared to the larger ones. IT doesn't help to have a user list of 1k and no way to show the active users you actually interact with.
    - detaro 7y ago
      You'd have some of that either way, since required accounts and people acknowledging terms is something Mozilla explicitly wanted here.

MaulingMonkey 7y ago

Basic auth processes varying wildly by server is a server/protocol problem, not a client problem, that also manifests itself as /command spam, even if IRC3 theoretically solves some of that. Web UIs don't fix that. It also doesn't terribly matter where in the IRC ecosystem the problems lie - the problems exist in said ecosystem, and they've not been effectively fixed. I've tried plenty of web UI clients, and have found them all quite unfortunately mediocre at best. For my part, I've gone so far as to write my own custom IRC client from scratch at one point to fix clientside issues I had - and written my share of utility bots - so hopefully I have some credence when I say I've done my part to try and resolve issues. And yet, I've jumped ship to Discord. Single signin, plenty of customization through bots, history, emoji, inline code blocks... sure, these could all theoretically be solved in IRC with infinite time and energy, but in practice they simply haven't been - and based on the trajectory of the past decade, won't be fixed within my lifetime either. Which leads me to think it's not entirely a technology problem, either. Switching away from the ossified IRC ecosystem may at least partially be a social solution disguised as a technical one. While I'm personally quite skeptical of Matrix as a solution, I applaud the attempt and the experiment. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

IRC has far more problems than just ugly clients. The largest one is that it requires holding open a connection constantly to work. This is fine in the age of desktop computers but totally unacceptable in the age of laptops and mobile. People also demand the features that modern protocols provide such as image uploading, encryption, profile pictures, etc. While a lot of this stuff can often technically be done on IRC, it never works as well and requires knowledge of how to set it all up. On matrix with the default client, it all just works. We can repeat the discussion about how dropbox is useless when you could just set up a ftp server on a vps or we could recognize that people like software that does what they want by default.