If you use GitHub, consider SourceHut or Codeberg. If you use Twitter, consider Mastodon instead. If you use YouTube, try PeerTube. If you use Facebook… don’t.
That last bit gave me a chuckle :D
Submitted 2 years ago by adrianmalacoda@lemmy.ml to opensource@lemmy.ml
https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/28/Dont-use-Discord-for-FOSS.html
Comments
onlooker@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
nutomic@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
About Discord, what is actually the appeal of using it? The short time I used it was always a huge hassle, with millions of captchas on every login. Then you need to answer weird questionnaires to join communities. And in the end the content was pretty mediocre. Plus the format sucks, you cant really read old messages (like you could do in a forum or on Reddit/Lemmy). And for new messages, it goes way too fast once a few people are participating. Its like combining the worst aspects of a forum with the worst aspects of a chat.
Ninmi@sopuli.xyz 2 years ago
Discord combines a lot of use cases in to one package. You get voice chat, modern chatrooms, video sharing/streaming, direct messages, group messages/calls etc.
But more importantly it operates on a paradigm where a user joining a server means you join all the channels automatically, and access to certain channels can then be revoked or gated instead of granted. This is the exact opposite of what, for example IRC had done (and what Matrix/Element still does to a large extent), and it fosters communities as one group of people can have an n amount text/voice channels dedicated to different conversational topics. This is very useful, even if it's just for a friend group of 5 people. It is no wonder FOSS projects use Discord when it is so useful for it.
Ironically, What Discord does would work incredibly well as a decentralized system. I cannot believe it's taking this long for the FOSS community create an alternative.
Helix@feddit.de 2 years ago
I cannot believe it’s taking this long for the FOSS community create an alternative.
Loom at this and you know why: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/7487
poVoq@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
I think this is mainly because all of what you describe has been available as FOSS software for a long time, just not wrapped into a single browser based package. So there is little reason to reinvent the wheel when you actually have better specialized tools available.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
agreed. i've been stuck with discord for years because i don't really keep in touch with a lot of people and the three main people i keep in touch with uses discord exclusively (one is a developer and uses it within those circles, the other is a gamer and uses it within those circles, the third is an aquarist and uses it within those circles). i've argued so many times that we should move to matrix, but they insist that the community structure of discord is superior to anything on the market. @Ninmi@sopuli.xyz has a valid point that it has a good structure for plain communication, but that doesn't mean it's a good community platform for exchange of information; which is your point and i wholly agree. for the purpose of exchange of information, "guilded", a discord clone, is superior as it actually has multiple information exchange features such as an actual forum on top of discords features. unfortunately it is also not FOSS and it is my personal reason for choosing matrix over it, despite matrix not having the features either discord or guilded does. it is frankly infuriating that something like guilded can pop out from nowhere with a small team and do what matrix has failed to deliver for years.
Akimoto@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
It starts as an alternative to Mumble for gamers to communicate. I can see it is easier to setup compare to Mumble and free. It is very optimized despite using Electron. Feature wise, it is also very complete and customizable.
It eventually grew to what it is today.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
mumble (which displaced ventrilo/teamspeak as the previous dominant gaming chat clients) was already displaced by curse voice, which then got displaced by discord.
discord was selling itself as "the good guys" who would never do something scummy, and targetted the market as a slack for gamers, and right before launch, they sold out. but it was already "too big" to get people to change client. and now it's growing even more because people are looking at it as an alternative platform to facebook groups - now that facebook is fucking up groups.
hello_lebbit@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Hosting a forum and a general chat is probably the best choice. Mahbe even a big FOSS platform that can host a lot of forums simultaneously for others, almost like something that already exists and im making a comment using that platform 🧐🧐
poVoq@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
As someone who does just that... user numbers speak against it. Forums are "dying" everywhere as people just seem to avoid them. I don't like it either, but I don't see a way to reverse this trend either.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I think that federation is the answer, it's just an answer over a long time rather than an immediate catastrophic paradigm shift.
It might not have taken off yet for message boards, but it's the only way to allow diversity and self-reliance while also allowing a common community and an aggregated large user base.
That's the USP of big tech: Go on facebook or reddit and you can join multiple different communities from one place, whereas it's a unique commitment to be on even a few standalone forums since you routinely have to go to each one. Federate and suddenly you can be in multiple communities that have nothing to do with each other from whichever site you like the design of.
Echedenyan@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
I prefer the forum model to ask questions and drive discussions.
It is fully asynchronous, you don't need to wait for answers in real time where in a real time chat, all this information is lost in a few moments.
SusPillow9328@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
GitHub has the Discussions tab, maybe Gitea and Sourcehut could do the same thing. GitLab probably already has it, that thing is so bloated.
poVoq@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Sourcehut's shtick is that everything is managed though email mailing lists so I guess they already have that despite my personal dislike of email for such purposes.
Emberleaf@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
I quite like Revolt Chat, an open source alternative to Discord with a very similar UI - https://revolt.chat/
GardenPilled@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
How does this compare to element.io?
SusPillow9328@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Element uses the Matrix protocol which is decentralized with federation (like Lemmy!). Revolt is a centralized service but it looks and functions more like Discord, and last time i checked they didn’t have native apps so iOS users can’t get notifications for messages.
adrianmalacoda@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Perceptive readers might have noticed that most of these arguments can be generalized. This article is much the same if we replace “Discord” with “GitHub”, for instance, or “Twitter” or “YouTube”. If your project depends on proprietary infrastructure, I want you to have a serious discussion with your collaborators about why. What do your choices mean for the long-term success of your project and the ecosystem in which it resides? Are you making smart investments, or just using tools which are popular or that you’re already used to?
greensand@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Also, using Discord and the like makes an otherwise good FOSS project lose credibility
hun7r@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
I have the community for my projects in discord, due to most of my projects being games. But for my FOSS projects, if someone has bugs or something I ask them to create issue on the relevant github page. I may eventually move to codeberg but idk yet.
tommi@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
YES!
THANK YOU!
I have been so limited in participating to conversations about great software only because they happened on Discord and I do not use it by choice.
Let us all use Matrix, instead!
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I can totally understand why a project with limited resources wouldn't want to post a matrix using synapse, but there are other options out there.
the_tech_beast@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
You don't have to host a matrix instance. Creating a room/space on the default matrix.org server is easy and free.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I guess you technically don't have to, but to me part of the point of using an open source tool is you can host it yourself and you don't need to ask permission or apologize for using the service in a way the operator didn't intend.
At this point, I host most of my own services. Especially if they're federated.
Gnotek@midwest.social 2 years ago
Here here!
Ninmi@sopuli.xyz 2 years ago
Rather than trying to persuade people to use either incompatible or insufficient alternatives, we must call people to arms and actually create an alternative. Matrix/Element is getting very close and we need more poeple improving the ecosystem.
Element still needs a UX overhaul and voice channels and the basic building blocks are already there then.
Yujiri@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
As an element user for about a year: the biggest thing element needs is to make E2E actually work consistently. Every day I see random "can't decrypt this message for some reason" errors, and it makes me embarrassed whenever I convince someone to try using Matrix instead of proprietary platforms and then I have to tell them I can't read their messages and the first three things we tried to fix it didn't work. This is the biggest reason why I want to abandon Matrix for good as soon as possible, and am working on creating another federated chat protocol.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
i haven't had this issue in over a year except for when using clients other than element.
mp3@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
At least Cinny is kinda close UI-wise to Discord.
Helix@feddit.de 2 years ago
it doesn't have voice channels though, which is the #1 USP for Discord for gamers.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
element (like discord) is using an electron wrapper, which is awful and there is no way around it. what we need is a real client. nheko is far behind in features, so if anything, we need more people involved in improving that client.
SrEstegosaurio@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
Nheko is the best alternative that I know for the desktop scene. Tbh I hate electron apps.