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Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

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Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#311

Post by verdagon »

pdimitar wrote: post #285
edem wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is?

That Rust is gaining both mind-share and market share. A lot of the HN folks wage meaningless language wars that are a distraction from the actual success elements of Rust: namely that it removes a class of bugs by the mere virtue of your program compiling. Add to that a stellar quality and very dedicated community, sprinkle amazing tooling on top (semgrep filters, tree-sitter support, code-generation libraries) and…

Would you say that Rust's learning curve is also still an obstacle to widespread adoption?

It was a while ago, but I haven't asked around lately.

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#312

Post by crocodiletears »

DoctorOW wrote: post #95
donkarma wrote: post #12

how about a discord-compatible backend?

What would be the point? There's explicitly no third-party clients allowed for official Discord.

A Discord compatible backend would allow existing bot frameworks to work with the platform.

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#313

Post by pdimitar »

verdagon wrote: post #311
pdimitar wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Rust is gaining both mind-share and market share. A lot of the HN folks wage meaningless language wars that are a distraction from the actual success elements of Rust: namely that it removes a class of bugs by the mere virtue of your program compiling. Add to that a stellar quality and very dedicated community, sprinkle amazing tooling on top (semgrep filters, tree-sitter support, code-generation libraries) and…

Would you say that Rust's learning curve is also still an obstacle to widespread adoption? It was a while ago, but I haven't asked around lately.

I'd say so, yes, but it's definitely easy to start with it and use it just fine before you have to delve deeper.

So a more apt comparison would be that you can use it on, say, 5 to 8 levels, and you could be absolutely fine on each of them.

It does require a bigger upfront investment for sure but it's not as big as many claim.

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#314

Post by Arathorn »

KitDuncan wrote: post #110
Felk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really "disturbing" if it's maintained by mostly college students? If this was done by industry veterans I could understand your stance, but the way things are this feels uncalled for.

I mean it is a little absurd, when everyone on the planet is using email, which is federated...

i've even heard that some people use some kind of federated packet-switching network these days to communicate. it'll never catch on :)

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#315

Post by Arathorn »

stiltzkin wrote: post #301
steveklabnik wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run into Element bugs all the time. It's not the worst, but "not buggy at all" is not my experience.

I agree is not a black and white experience.

fwiw we are on a bit of a bug quest currently, so please file bugs as you see them and they will get rapidly triaged & wrangled and maybe even fixed.

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#316

Post by Rd6n6 »

HoppyHaus wrote: post #128

Finally, something that outright says that its intent is to be a discord alternative. So many platforms try to sell themselves on some other feature, rather than just being open source and self-hostable. So many things, like Matrix, come close, but lack key components to really competing, such as voice channels rather than calls. I hope this goes somewhere!

The real reason so many people use discord is the network effects. My friends and I joined discord really late in the game but for various reasons we eventually needed it. Eg, game development discussion groups and eventual marketing, or your weekly dnd group uses it, school, etc

I hope this succeeds but it’s going to be hard to take market share. I hope the signup flows and Ux are really smooth, foss software is often pretty hard to get started with for non technical people

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#317

Post by preya2k »

Arathorn wrote: post #269
e12e wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is the difference between channels and rooms, as in visiting rooms or tuning to a frequency to join a radio channel. It feels very different? And the use-cases are different.

Thanks all for the responses - the whole “matrix doesn’t have voice channels” thing is much clearer now: it’s not the hard bit (voice/video conferencing!) but just the UX of how it’s hooked up. This we can fix :)

"it's not the hard bit but just the UX" – I think this is not a good statement. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it shows a certain state of mind: Tech/protocol/crypto/algorithms are hard, but UX is just decor and easy. That's just wrong. For many users, UX is way more important than Key Backups and Cross signing of devices. If FOSS projects want to be an alternative to Slack/Discord, then these things are precisely what matters – a lot.

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#318

Post by eointierney »

Arathorn wrote: post #176
aceArtGmbH wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Element keeps getting notably better :D Keep polishing it and silence the haters

Thank you :) and yup, this is our masterplan :D

You're doing some of the most important work on the Internet right now, and I for one am profoundly grateful.

Seriously, for anyone else reading, this attempt to provide federated privacy of communication is the kind of thing Saint iGNUcious himself might bless (I don't know if he does but am hopeful).

I had a chat with a friend recently and he said in response to my declination to use Signal:

"(I appreciate the commitment to decentralisation, but the battle of messaging apps ended up elsewhere). You're still fighting for the emperor in the jungle but the forces in the war changed years ago :)"

Decentralisation is the very purpose of the Internet, and federation is how it will work.

We just need to help you solve all the user experience problems, and they are very soluble.

Keep up the great work!

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#319

Post by tomc1985 »

ejj28 wrote: post #265
tomc1985 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want to make sure it's not being written in Electron

I welcome apps using Electron, most Electron apps I use work great and have nice UIs that are consistent across platforms

I'd rather have UIs that are true to their platform (and all the nice little accoutrements that come with) than this universal, inconsistent crap that works OK at best

Re: Revolt: Open-source alternative to Discord

#320

Post by gsich »

Arathorn wrote: post #175
HoppyHaus wrote: post #128

Finally, something that outright says that its intent is to be a discord alternative. So many platforms try to sell themselves on some other feature, rather than just being open source and self-hostable. So many things, like Matrix, come close, but lack key components to really competing, such as voice channels rather than calls. I hope this goes somewhere!

The whole "matrix doesn't have voice channels" thing is a bit frustrating, because... in Element, you can hit the voice or video call button in any channel (not just voice channels!) and it will spin up a voice/video conference in that channel. If you then switch channel, you'll stay in the original conference, unless you drop and rejoin the new one. I think that's basically precisely the same capability as you get i…

The workflow and "feeling" is not the same.
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