Hi,
On Wed, 2020-07-08 at 18:31 +0200, Sander Striker wrote:
[...]
> While the ASF doesn't host IRC infrastructure, there are some commonly used
> channels:
> - Slack [3]
> - IRC via Freenode [4][5]
>
> I'd like to gauge preference, and gather reasons why a certain technology
> is harder to access in practice.
TLDR:
IRC: +1
Anything not IRC: -1 (or minus as many points as I am allowed).
Really, there is only one choice here: IRC.
I'll try to summarize my reasoning for this for the benefit of the
list, in the hopes that our community doesn't get dragged out of sight
to hide out in some remote non-IRC location.
* IRC is where everything happens.
IRC is where all FOSS projects of note have a channel, sometimes one
for users and one for developers. Here is a sample of (some of the)
generally relevant channels which I usually have open in my IRC
window:
Freenode:
#bash
#glibc
#gcc
#musl
#buildroot
#yocto
#mesonbuild
#freedesktop-sdk
#flatpak
#sqlite
#python
#libreoffice
OFTC:
#debian
#reproducible-builds
#kernelnewbies
#qemu
Many of these channels, like #buildroot or #yocto, fall directly into
our sphere or relevance, others, like #glibc, #gcc, #musl, are all
highly relevant to us, due to being related to the deepest levels of
the build space (the bootstrap) - as much as a BuildStream hacker has
cause to eventually visit these channels, we would hope that soon
enough, users from all of these channels will have cause to visit
#buildstream.
Arguably, any Linux/FOSS hacker cannot do without IRC, so for us to
use anything other than IRC is only placing additional burden and
effort on anyone who would join our channel. Instead of having us
directly available on IRC, one must go out of their way to reach us.
* Personal experience with "new shiny things" - losing my attention.
In recent years, GNOME has been moving mailing lists to a thing
called "Discourse".
While discourse boasts it's ability to interface with email in such
a way to make an easy transition from mailing lists, it is simply not
true.
The side effect is that I have no interest in going all the way to
subscribe to a new "topic" on a webpage, if I receive emails from
discourse, they are littered with HTML (looks like spam mail), but
the most essential problem with discourse is that:
Messages are not sent as normal emails directly to my inbox.
I.e. the main problem is that discourse is not email, and as such, it
can never possibly receive the attention it deserves, I don't have to
go out of my way to read email, but I have to go out of my way to
read discourse... as such: most messages escape my attention.
Using ${not-IRC} for chat in a development project is akin to using
${not-EMAIL} for asynchronous archived discussion, it is only an
extra burden to use ${not-IRC}, and as such we lose out on peoples
attention.
* Residual participation in projects
Over time I have participated in many different FOSS projects, and of
course a side effect of this is that I always have an open IRC
channel on projects I've previously contributed to. In this way, I'm
usually around to answer a question or help out in small ways with
a project I've previously been involved in.
I can guarantee that this would not happen if any of these projects
had channels on ${not-IRC-chat-platofrm} instead, this residual
participation in projects is only possible because these projects use
the de facto global standard for hackers to chat with: IRC (it costs
nothing extra to be registered to an additional IRC channel, anyway
you're going to have your IRC client running).
* Technical merits of alternative chat platforms...
... are just not even marginally relevant in considering what
platform to choose, when everyone is using IRC already.
If everyone were to switch to something that is not IRC, then
that ${not-IRC} thing would be the obvious choice.
In closing, I know that I don't have to try Slack to know that it is
not IRC, so obviously: IRC.
Cheers,
-Tristan
