So You Want To Write An Open Source Discord Replacement
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I disagree about federation and encryption. Any platform which is centralized or not encrypted will inevitably be co-opted by fascists and capitalists. Antifascism and anticapitalism should be primary design goals for all software projects regardless of whether or not the masses care.
I think you're spot on with everything else. It's possible to meet those goals while providing the features and UX people want. We don't have to choose between safety and convenience.
@krapp @0xabad1dea Also my impression is that the primary use case for discord is for very large groupchats, frequently open to anyone on the internet, in which case encryption isn't very useful as bad actors can either join the chat themselves, or send phishing emails to all 100 chat members knowing that one will probably take the bait. If you want to chat with a small group of people confidentially, signal already exists.
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@the_wub @0xabad1dea
Respectfully, this mindset of infinite customization will drive away all but the most dedicated enthusiasts.I think a priority should be to have a small team of talented UI/UX designers create a likable, aesthetic, and intuitive interface that doesn’t feel like it was designed by an alien species tripping on acid.
@freediverx @0xabad1dea I said nothing about an "infinite" number of options.
As for "likable, aesthetic, and intuitive interface" beauty is, and always has been in the eye of the beholder. As is "intuitive".
It is impossible to make UIs that fit all devices and fit all users. There are idioms in "modern" UI that still catch me out.
Like making a "search" or "add (contact)" button a free floating element in a completely different colour instead of being a choice under the main menu element.
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@freediverx @0xabad1dea I said nothing about an "infinite" number of options.
As for "likable, aesthetic, and intuitive interface" beauty is, and always has been in the eye of the beholder. As is "intuitive".
It is impossible to make UIs that fit all devices and fit all users. There are idioms in "modern" UI that still catch me out.
Like making a "search" or "add (contact)" button a free floating element in a completely different colour instead of being a choice under the main menu element.
@freediverx @0xabad1dea Would it not make more sense to have, as with IRC or Mastodon an open defined communications protocol which allows people to write clients that they find "likable, aesthetic, and intuitive" so that end users can choose which client they want to use?
Be it a CLI client under Linux, a default web client or a program written to match a particular desktop (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, Phosh etc).
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@freediverx @0xabad1dea Would it not make more sense to have, as with IRC or Mastodon an open defined communications protocol which allows people to write clients that they find "likable, aesthetic, and intuitive" so that end users can choose which client they want to use?
Be it a CLI client under Linux, a default web client or a program written to match a particular desktop (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, Phosh etc).
@the_wub @0xabad1dea
Without giving it too much thought… yes.…after a couple seconds of thought, I’m thinking of a fun but balkanized ecosystem of apps built around the open protocol, and later someone coming uo with a very polished and elegant client app that becomes very popular, and then the developer“embracing and extending” the protocol to create yet another walled garden fueled by VC and insatiable greed.
Which brings me back to, how do we prevent this cycle from repeating?
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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@infosec.exchange It needs to be sustainable, otherwise you will need a replacement for the replacement. Federation might help achieve that.
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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 you do need federation because without federation it will enshittify
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@nojhan @0xabad1dea also, that looks more like slack
But it's probably *close enough*
@0xabad1dea @RandomDamage I don't see much difference, TBH. Tomatoe, tomatoes.
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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 as someone who uses discord mostly as IRC but with emojis and images... What *are* the main reasons people use discord? Like this seems like there should be so many open alternatives, but I'm obviously missing something.
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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 To clarify about federation, dozens if not hundreds of projects have tried federation, and there are only two that have actual federation and an actually decent UX.
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@the_wub @0xabad1dea
Without giving it too much thought… yes.…after a couple seconds of thought, I’m thinking of a fun but balkanized ecosystem of apps built around the open protocol, and later someone coming uo with a very polished and elegant client app that becomes very popular, and then the developer“embracing and extending” the protocol to create yet another walled garden fueled by VC and insatiable greed.
Which brings me back to, how do we prevent this cycle from repeating?
@freediverx @0xabad1dea There is no app, no matter how polished and elegant that will be seen as "polished and elegant" by all users.
Who controls the protocols, how changes are defined is the way to keep control away from those with insatiable greed.
FOSS does allow for forks so as long as forking a protocol is possible then control can always be wrested from the greedy.
This is impossible with systems such as FaceBook and Twitter where one company controls everything.
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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 what is
- a user interface that is Normal
???
- Because #Windows-esque #UI & #UX is fucking atrocious brainrot and I refuse to accept such neurotypical, proven-to-be-wrong horseshite to begin with!
For anyone reasonable, there's @zulip, @RocketChat and #IRC + #Mumble & #JitsiMeet already...
Remember:
DUMMY THICC APP & CENTRALIZATION = BAD! -
note that I didn’t even touch on audio/video calls and screen sharing, which are HEAVILY used features of discord, but we can start with “a solid chatroom experience” as the minimum viable replacement; if you can’t get that part right, discussing the rest with a straight face is clownshoes
@0xabad1dea #Zulip & #RocketChat do that if you want to have logs like a fed and suffer from FOMO so you can't use #IRC...
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@0xabad1dea things you need : enough furries on the team?
@archiloque @0xabad1dea transfem furries!
- They may also make reproduceable builds on #nixOS for all OSes whilst at it...
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@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange discord has multiparty end to end encryption so you do actually need this for voice and video data
@froge @0xabad1dea or you could just seperate #Chat and #Voice functionality into smaller tools...
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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)
@RandomDamage @nojhan @0xabad1dea Sadly, #Mattermost is only "open core" and thus #OpenWashing...
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@maswan @0xabad1dea Two cats and a French cat? Heck yeah!
@catsalad @maswan @0xabad1dea meanwhile anyone who never used #discord is laughing in #IRC, #Mumble and #JitsiMeet...
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@catsalad @maswan @0xabad1dea meanwhile anyone who never used #discord is laughing in #IRC, #Mumble and #JitsiMeet...
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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
Quasi-federation (each 'server' is controlled by a single instance that acts as the final authority on What Happened) is very useful to avoid lock-in, though;
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@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.
@ury easy export and ability to self-host should handle these goals, or do you also want server/instance interoperability
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@0xabad1dea as someone who uses discord mostly as IRC but with emojis and images... What *are* the main reasons people use discord? Like this seems like there should be so many open alternatives, but I'm obviously missing something.
@varx @0xabad1dea its a very polished experience for the most part, also profile customisation and the cool bots discord already has
