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My impression is that rasengan (Andrew Lee) does really seem to care about IRC, and he does see himself as the 'good guy', but his thoughts on how to make it al

by mercer 5y ago

My impression is that rasengan (Andrew Lee) does really seem to care about IRC, and he does see himself as the 'good guy', but his thoughts on how to make it all work clash with the somewhat more anarchic volunteer-based way Freenode worked, as the most charitable interpretation. Slightly less charitably, it comes across as a rich dude wanting, expecting, and/or being used to being boss, and being (legitimately) confused as to why this is causing so much trouble from his volunteer underlings. It's hard to be a prince in this world...

geofft 5y ago
Even under the charitable interpretation, he "cares about IRC" in a way very different from how any of the projects that use Freenode care about IRC. Ask Gentoo or Ubuntu or Wikipedia what they want out of an IRC network, and they'll probably say, hm, more stability and less spam, I guess. Ask Andrew Lee what he wants abut IRC and this is what he says (from https://irc.com/ https://irc.com/): > Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect.
- vfclists 5y ago
  > Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect. i.e. he wants to evolve/transmogrify IRC into a system that is more amenable to centralization, data collection and monetization.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Hmm, sounds like he wants to make another WhatsApp, and probably expecting a few billion Zuckdollars buy-out. Hah, with all the users (the reason Zuck pays billions) abandoning the sinking ship, Lee's dream is evaporating in front of his very eyes. Say bye-bye to that superyacht, Mr. Prince!
    - mercer 5y ago
      I imagine either Freenode will still end up doing fine, or he'll just conclude that us nerds don't understand the concept of ownership and threw him under the bus after all his donations and hard work, and then he'll move on to the next plaything. He'll probably get his superyacht eventually.
- daenney 5y ago
  I personally wouldn't mind IRC (also) having some of those features, and a client with a more Discord-like UX for those that want it. But I doubt you'll achieve that by single-handedly destroying one of the biggest IRC networks out there and basically guaranteeing folks won't want to work with you.
  - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
    To offer a different point of view: If I were to create my own chat protocol, I would actively try to make it next to impossible to implement it on mobile and consider this a feature. Nothing is gained by mobile users. From the features/interfaces they expect, the kind of communication people are accustomed to on mobile, and to them just being idlers 24/7 anyways. Let people who want smileys, gifs, fancy UI, backlogs upon reconnect, reply features, friend lists, voice features use discord and whatever, and please let IRC be a stream of text messages and old school and a haven from this modern shiny crappy world.
    - AlexAndScripts 5y ago
      I agree with you, with the exception of backlogs.
      - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
        I am not denying they can be useful, I am questioning how this should be achieved. You are connected, you receive the messages, you aren't, you don't. You don't want to miss anything, how about making sure you stay connected? Is this really something that has to be built into the chat protocol, massively increasing its complexity and just giving headaches, security issues, debug problems, wasting developers' time? I don't consider IRC a replacement for online boards / stackexchange. Even stopped logging completely, don't use a bouncer. If I am online, I'm there. Actually think it's an improvement.
      - welterde 5y ago
        That's being worked on and there are already irc daemons that support it (but it's all a bit bolted on until the standard for that is ratified). However it is also a feature that has to be enabled by the server operator and here you may run into different opinions if this should be a thing or not.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  > Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect. So... XMPP?
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Yeah, he didn’t need to buy and wreck FreeNode to do that. I do not buy this explanation.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Honestly, it screams impulse control problems to me, that or a catastrophic misunderstanding of how people actually think and act.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by mercer 5y ago

geofft 5y ago

Even under the charitable interpretation, he "cares about IRC" in a way very different from how any of the projects that use Freenode care about IRC. Ask Gentoo or Ubuntu or Wikipedia what they want out of an IRC network, and they'll probably say, hm, more stability and less spam, I guess. Ask Andrew Lee what he wants abut IRC and this is what he says (from https://irc.com/ https://irc.com/): > Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect.

vfclists 5y ago
> Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect. i.e. he wants to evolve/transmogrify IRC into a system that is more amenable to centralization, data collection and monetization.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Hmm, sounds like he wants to make another WhatsApp, and probably expecting a few billion Zuckdollars buy-out. Hah, with all the users (the reason Zuck pays billions) abandoning the sinking ship, Lee's dream is evaporating in front of his very eyes. Say bye-bye to that superyacht, Mr. Prince!
  - mercer 5y ago
    I imagine either Freenode will still end up doing fine, or he'll just conclude that us nerds don't understand the concept of ownership and threw him under the bus after all his donations and hard work, and then he'll move on to the next plaything. He'll probably get his superyacht eventually.
daenney 5y ago
I personally wouldn't mind IRC (also) having some of those features, and a client with a more Discord-like UX for those that want it. But I doubt you'll achieve that by single-handedly destroying one of the biggest IRC networks out there and basically guaranteeing folks won't want to work with you.
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
  To offer a different point of view: If I were to create my own chat protocol, I would actively try to make it next to impossible to implement it on mobile and consider this a feature. Nothing is gained by mobile users. From the features/interfaces they expect, the kind of communication people are accustomed to on mobile, and to them just being idlers 24/7 anyways. Let people who want smileys, gifs, fancy UI, backlogs upon reconnect, reply features, friend lists, voice features use discord and whatever, and please let IRC be a stream of text messages and old school and a haven from this modern shiny crappy world.
  - AlexAndScripts 5y ago
    I agree with you, with the exception of backlogs.
    - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
      I am not denying they can be useful, I am questioning how this should be achieved. You are connected, you receive the messages, you aren't, you don't. You don't want to miss anything, how about making sure you stay connected? Is this really something that has to be built into the chat protocol, massively increasing its complexity and just giving headaches, security issues, debug problems, wasting developers' time? I don't consider IRC a replacement for online boards / stackexchange. Even stopped logging completely, don't use a bouncer. If I am online, I'm there. Actually think it's an improvement.
    - welterde 5y ago
      That's being worked on and there are already irc daemons that support it (but it's all a bit bolted on until the standard for that is ratified). However it is also a feature that has to be enabled by the server operator and here you may run into different opinions if this should be a thing or not.
pmlnr 5y ago
> Refreshed mobile apps, intuitive web apps, friends lists, working team support, video calls and file sharing. All within a few taps of the mobile device as people have come to expect. So... XMPP?
ashtonkem 5y ago
Yeah, he didn’t need to buy and wreck FreeNode to do that. I do not buy this explanation.

ashtonkem 5y ago

Honestly, it screams impulse control problems to me, that or a catastrophic misunderstanding of how people actually think and act.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]