So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea I think that federation at this point it's not a luxury, but a necessity. Given the direction of where global net is headed (regulation, centralization, etc), users must have a way to migrate their accounts and friends to some independent server hosted in a neutral location.
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea I fail hard on the last item on your list of needed things, so I will not start such a project, I promise
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@0xabad1dea (I realise I'm muted here, but I think some of those negative points are significant)
- No federation: some bastard can come along and buy it. Doesn't matter if I can run my own if everyone else is on the Nazi Server. Federation is not proof against this (see email) but it's a necessary start.
- No multiparty e2e encryption: we don't care about black or gay or trans people being allowed to talk without everything they say being fed into the secret police machine. They, however, do.@RogerBW @0xabad1dea these are fair points, but you need to keep in mind that not every chat room is designed for high stakes conversations. Offline parallel: you're applying the security standards of a revolutionary cell to a comic convention or a book club. Which would be fine if it did not lead to significantly degraded user experience.
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@RogerBW @0xabad1dea these are fair points, but you need to keep in mind that not every chat room is designed for high stakes conversations. Offline parallel: you're applying the security standards of a revolutionary cell to a comic convention or a book club. Which would be fine if it did not lead to significantly degraded user experience.
@creepy_owlet @0xabad1dea I agree that that's a valid argument; the downside is that leaving out encryption is essentially telling significant numbers of people (deliberately or not) "we're not for you, we're only for people with enough social capital that they don't have to watch what they say and people who are eternally on edge".
That may work for whatever use case you have in mind of course, and I've done things like that myself, but these days it's not a good smell. -
@RogerBW @0xabad1dea these are fair points, but you need to keep in mind that not every chat room is designed for high stakes conversations. Offline parallel: you're applying the security standards of a revolutionary cell to a comic convention or a book club. Which would be fine if it did not lead to significantly degraded user experience.
@creepy_owlet @RogerBW @0xabad1dea My experience of trying to keep chat channels for specific purposes on topic is that many people find it hard to stay on topic
Suddenly personal information pops up as they either forget or can't be bothered opening another channel or a private chat. Or they really don't understand the difference between "private" and "private".
So if you apply the security standards of a revolutionary cell to normal chats then what you "blurt out" will always remain private.
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea P2P communications when technically appropriate (one to one chats and small groups).
So you only need to leave a trace on a presence server/system.
I would suggest that federation is needed given the internet "land grab" that has taken place since the heady days 1990s. Power over the internet is now concentrated in very few hands.
That a problem with one AWS server farm can have such a big impact on the world is ridiculous not to mention insane from a strategic standpoint.
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@ljrk@todon.eu @0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange then you probably shouldnt be the one to develop a discord replacement
@stella @0xabad1dea Oh, absolutely, don't worry, no danger there
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea "- a user interface that is Normal "
Perhaps "a range of user interfaces to suit a variety of preferences that can be select and changed by the user at will."
Not just light vs dark themes but also the difference between more traditional desktop metaphors (IceWM/XFCE) and the swipe driven small-screen-optimised user experience that many phone users seem to favour (for reasons known to those users).
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@katarjin.bsky.social @0xabad1dea Idk, I dislike Skype but it did tick those boxes as well :'-D
But it's mostly the UX. I find the threads and channels and idk everything very... overwhelming. I never find the stuff I wanted to reply to.
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I do consider federation important. Single point of failure and all that
To be honest I do not think the normal user who is just sick of Discord and looks for something similar does really care, but it is good to have it in case you want it later I guess
Most of my friends do not even know what federation means, I have to explain to them what I learned from using Mastodon and WAFRN myself
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So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
Things you don’t need:
- federation/distributed systems
- multiparty end-to-end encryption
- an entirely new operating system kernel specially designed to—Things you DO need:
- a user interface that is Normal
- the ability to use languages other than English and writing systems other than Latin
- higher standards of user experience than how irc actually works in the real world
- any fucking clue how Discord works and why people use itI have muted replies to this post due to the usual reasons
@0xabad1dea Also needed:
- a cat mascot!
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@katarjin.bsky.social @0xabad1dea Idk, I dislike Skype but it did tick those boxes as well :'-D
But it's mostly the UX. I find the threads and channels and idk everything very... overwhelming. I never find the stuff I wanted to reply to.
@ljrk @katarjin.bsky.social @0xabad1dea
I'm with you. I didn't/don't get Slack, Discord, Matrix (and neither IRC). I understand group chats but as soon as they get busy I'm completely overwhelmed and feel left alone by the tools -
@0xabad1dea Also needed:
- a cat mascot!
@catsalad @0xabad1dea catcatchat!
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A system with end-to-end encryption has no access to message content on the server because that is literally the definition of E2E encryption.
That means you will never have access to past content – you weren't in the receiver list of a channel when the message was sent, and you won't retroactively get it, because the server cannot add you. You are essentially joining an empty channel or even server.
That also means that the server cannot look into message content, for example to identify and autoban spammers, work on message moderation or otherwise do what anybody would reasonably expect a server to do in terms of safety and abuse control.
It also means that the server cannot provide you with a meaningful server based search at all. Instead the client has to download the content it has keys for and then search locally. That won't happen except on desktop devices, and even there it won't work well.
You could add a server machine user to every message so that search and automoderation would have access to message content. But that means effectively you don't have, and don't need end, and don't want to end-to-end encryption.
Which you don't.
It's not a cool feature, for anybody except the most limited set of users, and these will still hate every second of the experience they are forced to have by their circumstances.
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@catsalad @0xabad1dea catcatchat!
@maswan @0xabad1dea Two cats and a French cat? Heck yeah!
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@0xabad1dea @shelldozer that does not deter people from using it en masse.
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@0xabad1dea @shelldozer that does not deter people from using it en masse.
@0xabad1dea @shelldozer also, no, i mean the Whatsapp that is co-owned by Walmart, the Italian Mafia, and Migros. Duh.
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@nojhan @0xabad1dea considering where we are and who you're replying to, maybe the source repo would be a better place to direct people?
(It's on github, but things could be worse)
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@0xabad1dea @gabboman if you don't make it distributed, you also have to host the entire bloody thing - which gets expensive once you add video chat and/or screensharing at any meaningful scale
@ratsnakegames WebRTC can work for about 80% of network configuration with just STUN and for small calls at least, especially audio only, the call quality should be at least as good as unboosted Discord. No need to shove any media thru a server. If the rest of the experience is great, this could be fine. And with the right architecture, TURN could be configured per server/channel/whatever, allowing users to either self host that OR pay (opening up a revenue option without forcing monopoly)
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@nojhan @0xabad1dea considering where we are and who you're replying to, maybe the source repo would be a better place to direct people?
(It's on github, but things could be worse)
@nojhan @0xabad1dea also, that looks more like slack
But it's probably *close enough*
