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IRCv3 Spec round-up
- swiley 5y agoThe only thing IRC really needs if you want it to be more popular is a standard for communicating and using push gateways.
- progval 5y agoThere is a work in progress specification for push notifications: https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/471 https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/471
- janvdberg 5y agoIf you really want to improve IRC, add threads. Most IRC channels I join it’s impossible to follow discussions.
- progval 5y agoThere is a draft specification to allow threading messages: https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/reply https://ircv3.net/specs/client-tags/reply Not many clients are interested in implementing it, though.
- welterde 5y agoFor me it's the inverse, I am having a real hard time with threads on slack. But no issue following discussions on busy IRC channels. It's probably just a matter of getting used to it one way or the other.
- kmeisthax 5y agoSlack's implementation of threads is really weird, it almost feels like they're trying to hide them. If I get replied to in a thread I almost certainly lose it. On the other hand, Discord's UI treats threads as temporary channels, and that works way better because you can actually see the thread as unread or not in the channel and server lists. I really wish Slack would steal this.
- welterde 5y agoI haven't used Discord too much, but my main gripe (apart from calling communities "servers") was that most communities had way too many channels already, but haven't seen them in action, so maybe that strategy works better in practice.
- foxfluff 5y agoYMMV, I've been checking out discord and I don't really like threads much. It feels like the discussion is stashed away semi-hidden in a corner which sort of discourages casual / intermittent participation and you easily miss the whole thread. It's like I have to go out of my way and butt into someone's discussion whereas the chatter on an IRC channel feels open to every participant.
- xfitm3 5y agothreading is a slack-ism, I prefer one linear scrollback instead of having to click into conversations
- ptman 5y agobut not slack threads, but reddit/mailing threads, or trees
- phoronixrly 5y agoDoes Andrew Lee of Freenode infamy have a say in the definition/ratification of the ircv3 specs?
- austincheney 5y agoWould that matter? This is an IETF working group which has a process to test and ratify updates. Edit: I found this helpful page on the site describing open participation. https://ircv3.net/participation https://ircv3.net/participation
- vadfa 5y agoI doubt he's interested in this kind of stuff at all. Myself I wanted to stay, but he kinda "closed" freenode - you need to register using a web form and access using SASL. Since he dropped the old nick database, you can't use your old nick anymore. I doubt there are many people online there at this point.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoI was sad at the commotion in the community but at least he did it with so much passion that everyone left for Libera and the community wasn't split at all :) A few projects remained at first but when he wiped the database and they lost their op rights to random people (whoever happened to join back first) the last ones moved over. So now Libera is what Freenode used to be, nothing more nothing less, only with more well-defined management that learned their lessons about vetting contracts. They're doing a great job at continuing the Freenode spirit and everything is settled back to normal. Pretty much the best outcome possible from all this IMO. Ps the sign up form is so un-irc. The great thing about IRC is that you don't need any identity.
- account42 5y ago> everyone left for Libera and the community wasn't split at all Sadly Libera.Chat is only at about half the size [0] that Freenode was. Sure, a lot of those lost will not have been active participants anymore (just keeping their bouncer/client running) but all of them? [0] https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
- ttybird 5y agoWhat does this solve that xmpp and matrix do not? And still no e2ee, after all these years.
- progval 5y agoOTR is a de-facto standard for e2ee on IRC, it predates Matrix by a decade.
- ttybird 5y agoAnd yet almost nobody who uses irc uses it, unlike omemo (xmpp) and olm (matrix). Its encryption also predates matrix by a decade, its dh prime is only 1.5k bits big.
- progval 5y agoTrue, people on IRC usually don't mind conversations being public. Check out OTRv4 though, they are working on modernizing the encryption: https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4 https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoIs anyone using IRC for private conversations? I only see it being used for public chat rooms where every message is even getting recorded to a public archive; it's one of the rare cases of a messaging system where people have nearly zero concern for privacy. (I'm all for having the option of course, just pointing out a cultural reason why e2ee wouldn't have much uptake since nobody cares)
- ttybird 5y agoI responded to that in another message but yes, many people do. Either via direct messages or small private channels. But even if they didn't, there would be no reason not to move their public conversations to the protocol that they use for direct messages.
- garaetjjte 5y ago
- beebeepka 5y agoSo,a basic standard web chat spec. I am good with that. Didn't see anything about WebRTC, so no multimedia? I'm fine with that, too. Basic is good. Now, I am not up to date with modern chat apps, but I'd imagine most of what is out there has everything in this draft and then some. So, why would anyone commit to the protocol besides nostalgia. Not saying it's bad, just wondering
- d--b 5y agoUgh, they added "Typing notification". Thankfully it's only a protocol, we can ignore this if we want.
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoSo far, how well are clients supporting the disabling of sending the typing beacon?
- vadfa 5y agoThe entire spec is basically "ugh, they added thing-that-doesnt-really-belong-in-irc"
- GekkePrutser 5y agoI have to say IRC could do with some mod cons like server/bouncer based scrollback and multi client syncing. I get these now through quassel but it'd be nice to have them in the protocol. I have a feeling IRCv3 will never be finished though. The activity level is just too low.
- m_eiman 5y agoThe chathistory command is for you: https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory https://ircv3.net/specs/extensions/chathistory
- buovjaga 5y agoThere is plenty of implementation activity and I am summarising it in these types of posts: https://www.ilmarilauhakangas.fi/irc_technology_news_from_the_first_half_of_2021/ https://www.ilmarilauhakangas.fi/irc_technology_news_from_th...
- tester34 5y agoOn the other hand what choices do they have?
- Chris2048 5y ago
- intricatedetail 5y agoNo end to end encryption? It should be default at least for private messages.
- johnisgood 5y agoYeah. Welp, you can still use OTR.
- progval 5y agoOTR <https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/ https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/> is the de-facto standard for encryption on IRC. It's also quite old, so it predates IRCv3.
- raspyberr 5y agoWhat's the point of E2E in a public chatroom? If there's no restriction to enter anyone could just put a bot in that logs everything everyone says.
- intricatedetail 5y agoYou can have password protected rooms or host service on an untrusted platform. In a corporate environment lack of e2ee is a deal breaker.
- ViViDboarder 5y ago> In a corporate environment lack of e2ee is a deal breaker Not in my experience. I would want a new hire to be able to search past history for context and to many businesses like to monitor the chats. Keep in mind, IRC would generally be hosted by the business themselves so they’d have full access to the data. Why would that business want to hide their employees messages from themselves?
- intricatedetail 5y agoIt is rare these days that company actually has their own physical server room and "cloud" by default is not secure - you have to rely on cloud company security and integrity. I am thinking of that kind of scenario, however if you control who can access the servers then it may not be necessary.
- josteink 5y agoI hate to say this, but even as an old IRC diehard, I have to admit I gave up a year ago or so. The new IRC is Matrix, or at least for now. For me at least, it fullfills the same needs: - deploy your choice of server-software on your preferred server. - use your preferred client to connect to your preferred server. - allow communities to manage themselves in a decentralized manner, without any San Fransisco-based big-tech company imposing their CoC, ToS or view of "diversity" upon them. And it does so in a way which is mobile-friendly and supports all the "modern" additions to IM which normal people have come to expect. I can't see how IRCv3, if it ever lands, can compete with this. It's years (decades?) behind at this point. And if it lands a spec which is equally capable as Matrix, how can it ever be compatible with "the old IRC"? Myself, I'm still running my IRC network and servers, but they are bridged to Matrix and I encourage the community to move there too. And thus ends my interest in IRCv3. All in all, this seems like a lot of spec-work going into a what is surely going to be a doomed venture.
- donkarma 5y ago>- allow communities to manage themselves in a decentralized manner, without any San Fransisco-based big-tech company imposing their CoC, ToS or view of "diversity" upon them. the main matrix homeserver blocks you from federating with them if you violate their CoC and kicks all matrix users from your room
- dane-pgp 5y agoWhat is the user experience like when that happens? If you use the main Matrix homeserver and you're in a room hosted on another server when this happens, does your client show a helpful message like: "Sorry, you're not allowed to be in this room any more, because the people hosting the room committed the following thoughtcrime: $REASON"? I worry that it will instead just look like some generic network error message, with the remote server being tacitly deemed an un-place full of unpersons. Down the memoryhole it goes.
- DoItToMe81 5y agoIt gives you a generic error message and doesn't describe the block. And it happens quite frequently, whoever administrates the Matrix main homeserver is very ban happy.
- yur3i__ 5y agoI'm still not entirely sure on the point of IRCv3, it seems to me that the main draw of IRC in current times is the simplicity of the protocol, losing that by adding a whole bunch of new features, I don't see what niche IRC fills anymore.
- nicolaslem 5y agoAlmost everything in IRCv3 is opt-in. If you want to use netcat to access a modern IRC server you can still do it and it looks just the same as it looked in the 90s.
- progval 5y agoMinimalist and full-featured implementations can coexist and talk to each other, as all specs are designed with graceful degradation in mind. Minimalist implementations can also cherry-pick newer features they want. For example, this IRC client explicitly says it in its "non-features" section: https://git.causal.agency/catgirl/about/ https://git.causal.agency/catgirl/about/
- Macha 5y agoIf you read the XMPP discussion from the other day, one of the points highlighted was that there's no common spec for modern features so it's really hard to know if a given client<->server combo supports newer features. IRCv3 is the same idea. Some of it is stuff that's been around for ages so clients just assume it's there like SASL and capability negotiation - these are much more specifying what servers/clients already do, IRCv3 is not adding to complexity here because the complexity already exists. The second is more green field projects, like the stuff to allow a more web client friendly protocol compared to IRC currently by defining how to use web sockets avoiding the need for stuff like IRCCloud or Mibbit proxying their user's connections. Or chathistory to make it more mobile/not permanently attached friendly.
- that_guy_iain 5y agoSlack, Teams, and Discord are proof that there are serious demands to have a chat system. It's just IRC as it is, is clearly outdated for the current market. It's niche is as simple as it was way back when, you can create your own chat server for your community. Instead of having to use Discord, Slack, etc you can create your own and control it fully. While it's possible to do that to this day it's not to the same level it was back in the late 90s for example.
- trabant00 5y agoI'm really bummed about the negativity in the comments. I for one have high hopes for this as the current generation of web powered chats are huge pain for me. Maybe open protocols can take the lead again, at least for a while. It has happened before. Let other people work for our benefit with a bit of encouragement, it costs very little and an eventual failure will do you no harm.
- ttybird 5y agoThe cost is that it is fragmenting the already fragmented scene of open protocols with an inferior solution. Now I will have to install a 5th chat client in order to talk with the few people that will move to it.
- progval 5y agoNote that IRCv3 is backward-compatible, so you don't need a new client. Any existing IRC client can connect to it just fine; including multi-protocol clients like Pidgin. And if you do want a client with all the new IRCv3 features, that client can still connect to old IRC servers.
- ttybird 5y agoI uninstalled irssi once my friends moved to newer and better protocols, so yeah, I will need to.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 5y agoThe beauty of an open protocol is that you probably won't need a new client -- all the existing clients will just add it as another network to connect to. Remember back in the day when everything was an open protocol? We didn't use five chat clients -- we used Trillian to connect to all the different networks.
- 5y ago
- nightbrawler 5y agoBack in the 90s I spent a lot of time on EFnet. What's the go to network these days?
- icy 5y agoRizon. It isn’t quite as active, but there are a few good chans to chill in.
- ranieuwe 5y agoAs an EFnet admin: EFnet ;-) IRCnet is still around too with some very active chat channels (e.g. #worldchat). The networks are much smaller nowadays though.
- nightbrawler 5y agonice, now I want to connect and check out the old channels I used to hang out in!
- foxfluff 5y agolibera.chat is quite lively. IRCnet, efnet, quakenet, etc. are still there but maybe not as active as in the past.
- Minor49er 5y agoI went from DALnet to EFnet / Undernet. They're still near the top of Netsplit's list of Top 100 IRC Networks https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php EsperNet is on the list too. I remember spending a lot of time on there way back when.
- Seirdy 5y agoWant to talk about a FLOSS project? Libera.Chat, OFTC, GIMPNet. Want to just chat? Snoonet, Slashnet, Quakenet. Want to just chat but want it to be technology focused? Darkscience, 2600net. This is a shortlist of public networks I can recommend to a new/returning user; there are many smaller networks out there that you might discover organically with time.
- rawoke083600 5y agoMan i miss my IRC Days ! Still have real life friends from that. Also got my fist MP3 'file-send' to me..Lol anyone remembers the wareZz-IRC-Bots/channels. Lol apart from competing in content they also competed in terms of colors/ascii graphics. Still thinks its miles better than slack/skype for inter-office communication(Notice i said communication not app/task-tracking/1001-Things our over-engineered 'chat-programs' provide today). XChat - Good times :) PS. Would love to see some benchmarking for a modern-irc-daemon written in say Go or something else with good concurrency primatives. Was quite a issue 'back in the day' the max clients per server.
- balabaster 5y agoI don't miss the net splits though :D mIRC... those were the days. Good times, indeed!
- rawoke083600 5y agoHaha ja ! mIRC was a great client with excellent scripting capabilities !
- dopp0 5y agoI miss that a lot. it was one of my contacts with programming language, close to C. #pairc ftw
- zmix 5y agoBah, PeeZee! Nothing could ever beat AmIRC2[1] on Amiga! Especially when you were running "Kuang 11"[2], which developed from a client script into a shared library, written in some compiler language and offering, itself, a script API, in addition to the client's :-) I don't know how many times some idiots tried to take over a channel and Kuang 11 (or a sister project, it was, I think, which used the K11 API) reacted so fast, that our clients stood rock solid and could not be flooded, etc. [1]: https://www.amigaos.net/software/115/amirc https://www.amigaos.net/software/115/amirc [2]: http://de4.aminet.net/comm/irc/KuangEleven3Gm.readme http://de4.aminet.net/comm/irc/KuangEleven3Gm.readme