Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server • Hacker News Board

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#21

Post by wahern » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #8

> We are not rolling our own. Whether we host it ourselves or pay for a service, we’re getting something off the shelf that best meets our needs. I sincerely hope it’s not Slack and some restricted search archive platform. Moving away from IRC to a newer system could provide long lived archives to users. But if privacy is very important, then a “no archive” option would be fine (similar to IRC). Anything in between,…

Matrix shows how thorough the switch to HTTP has become. Like with DoH, what makes Matrix most attractive is the ability to implement solutions using pre-existing web application stacks, like Node.js. It's a sort of path dependency where the easiest way to implement a simple solution starts with a very complex, mostly superfluous foundation.

The fact that port 80 and 443 are less likely to be blocked is a distant, secondary factor. Frankly, I've never been on a network that blocked other outbound ports. And I've definitely never seen a network where hosted services could only ever receive traffic on port 80 or 443. Rather, I think it's more (if not entirely) a matter of people justifying the use of web stacks to implement services which cry out for simpler solutions.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#22

Post by Sphax » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

petre wrote: post #19

What are they replacing it with?

It's right there in the blog post:

> Very soon, I’ll be setting up the evaluation process for a couple of candidate replacement stacks

They don't know yet.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#23

Post by syntheticnature » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

Reading the comments, it amuses me that those who support Linux fail to realize that IRC is the microkernel (i.e. Minix) approach in messaging. Want authentication/security/archiving/etc.? Layer things of variable quality on top, and hope there aren't any holes on them!

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#24

Post by incompatible » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

nwmcsween wrote: post #18

Irc unauthenticated? IRC has supported auth services since what 1995? There are also plenty of web irc gateways so I don't understand the reasoning to move to something more complicated for little gain, want history? Run ii in a tmux session and tail to a file, want to post images with a fancy GUI taking a gig or so of ram use slack.

They apparently want anyone to be able to easily connect and talk to developers, except for trolls, scammers, spammers etc. I'm not really sure what kind of authentication provides that, but they seem to have something in mind.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#25

Post by doomrobo » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:01 AM UTC

I just want to say, for all it's worth, that the #rust channel on MozNet has been by far one of the most healthy and productive IRC channels that I've participated in. The channel is always active, and there is a constant presence of extremely qualified and patient folks in the chat (and often Rust core members as well). I hope that whatever they switch to will be able to foster a community as open and welcoming as their IRC.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#26

Post by larkeith » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:09 AM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #20

kibwen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could levy this complaint if they actually end up picking Slack (or something similarly proprietary like Discord), but that seems quite premature. I'll miss moznet as much as anyone, but there's no denying that IRC has been left in the dust this past decade or more.

It seems that by left in the dust, you mean "remained lightweight and simple". The popular alternatives so far don't seem to have any clients I find pleasant to use, and are rather strongly discouraging anyone from writing third party clients.

I've not used it myself, but have you looked into Matrix?

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#27

Post by duskwuff » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #11

nullc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accessibility, especially from bandwidth efficient light weight software or text only devices is at odds with blocking automated spam. If you make it much harder for anyone with unusual software to connect, you make it harder for spam (and also a lot more legitimate users than spammers, but those don't count because they don't cause issues for operators).

Registration solves this rather well. Especially when paired with requiring an email account to get a registration password.

At the expense of making it even more complicated for users -- especially inexperienced users, or users on mobile devices -- to access the chat.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#28

Post by maximilianburke » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

incompatible wrote: post #24

nwmcsween wrote: post #18

Irc unauthenticated? IRC has supported auth services since what 1995? There are also plenty of web irc gateways so I don't understand the reasoning to move to something more complicated for little gain, want history? Run ii in a tmux session and tail to a file, want to post images with a fancy GUI taking a gig or so of ram use slack.

They apparently want anyone to be able to easily connect and talk to developers, except for trolls, scammers, spammers etc. I'm not really sure what kind of authentication provides that, but they seem to have something in mind.

Perhaps something like being able to browse and search without registering, but if you want to chat you need to create an account?

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#29

Post by Perceptes » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:22 AM UTC

Please, Mozilla, choose Matrix. https://www.ruma.io/docs/matrix/why/

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#30

Post by bigiain » Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

wahern wrote: post #21

newscracker wrote: post #8

> We are not rolling our own. Whether we host it ourselves or pay for a service, we’re getting something off the shelf that best meets our needs. I sincerely hope it’s not Slack and some restricted search archive platform. Moving away from IRC to a newer system could provide long lived archives to users. But if privacy is very important, then a “no archive” option would be fine (similar to IRC). Anything in between,…

Matrix shows how thorough the switch to HTTP has become. Like with DoH, what makes Matrix most attractive is the ability to implement solutions using pre-existing web application stacks, like Node.js. It's a sort of path dependency where the easiest way to implement a simple solution starts with a very complex, mostly superfluous foundation. The fact that port 80 and 443 are less likely to be blocked is a distant, se…

On anecdata point.

I have several (all government) clients who cannot access port 8080 from their office network. We now have a bunch of aELB rules that forward a specific path prefix to port 8080 internally. I have not yet been accused of intentionally circumventing their firewall. But I live in hope...