6.7 KiB
Modern IRC
tl;dr: Why and how IRC.
After reviewing and testing many different chat solutions the clear winner is IRC + ZNC (with replay module) + weechat (with replay script) + thelounge + Palaver (on iOS).
The two game changer are:
- ZNC replay module (history handled correctly)
- ZNC palaver module (push notifications on iOS)
How to chat in 2019? Certainly with slack, or via a social media app in the browser or mobile phone app.
How geeks should chat in 2019?
To answer this question here is my opinion (after having tried many different chat solutions1. Here are the feature I think a modern geeky solution should have:
- terminal client or terminal-like UI (in emacs for example). All modern UI looks cool for screenshots, but if you are going to use it a lot, you will prefer density over good looking. Most app, web app are terrible related to information by number of pixel ratio.
- multi-platform: If you do not have a terminal at hand (or emacs) then, you should be able to get your message on your phone or via a web interface for portability.
- self-hosted: you should control your data, your history, your logs, the encryption methods, etc…
- teams and direct messages
- notifications, I tend to control those a lot, but a small private team chat is one of few exception where you generally want to be notified.
- Frugal. Really, we have a responsibility to do our best not to consume more resources than we really need. Chat should be about TEXT, not images, not videos, not presentations and PDF.
- Refuse anti-features: show when someone is typing, show when someone as read your message, etc… Those functionality are in fact increasing social insecurity and forces you to answer sooner instead of really taking the time to answer correctly.
- Use free software (not just open source software).
I am quite disappointed by modern chat applications.
Their major problems are:
- prodigal; most those client applications (slack, gitter, riot, mattermost, etc…) easily consume more than 300MB of RAM. Most of the time those clients are all electron app.
- not private. Most solution do not encrypt your conversations. Even if using encryption mechanism and you trust your client, and you will still reveal your social network topology.
-
anti-minimalist, I want dense text. I do not want:
- emojis,
- images,
- animations (gif or videos),
- HTML/Markdown display
-
Manipulative; they try very hard to optimize engagement. This is generally achieved through FOMO2 and social anxiety manipulations. A few examples:
- show when someone is writing a message
- show when someone has read a message,
- get notified about missed messages,
- get a "top messages you missed",
- etc…
- Prepared for EEE3. Most of those "modern" solution are a all-in-one solution, server + clients with generic + specific features. That way, some feature will be only possible in their client or that will push concurrent app developers to follow the pace of new features.
The manipulative part is quite important in fact. Many of those "features" are in fact wanted by the users. I think this is because those people should take the time to reflect about the real plus value of those features vs their price. Like it is state in Digital Minimalism4.
Even recent projects like matrix, mastodon that thrive to break monopolies are going a huge speed into this eternal run software development new ideology. Always evolve by adding as much new features as possible, instead of striving for simplicity, stability and security. But do we really need those features? People are asking for them, but we pass too much time asking about the how and forgetting about the why? Each new feature should be really studied before being developed.
Would that feature be a full total net positive for everyone? Or is there a price to pay? The price is generally the size and complexity of the project, that will make it bigger, slower, harder to manipulate, install, interact-with.
About failed attempts :PROPERTIES: :CUSTOM_ID: different-tries
:END:
- Matrix: I've used Matrix, and in fact it was really good except; the server is written in python and is clearly not frugal at all. Also I wanted to delete most of the history in the DB, and it was impossible to find a working documentation explaining how to do that correctly and easily (I'm not even sure this is possible). You can easily remove some channels history from the DB, but doing the opposite, keeping the history only of some channel and removing all others doesn't appear to be easy.
- Mattermost: I've tried to install mattermost, to install it, there is no package, you need to start a shell script as root that will erase and change your nginx configuration…. Seriously…
- Rocket.chat, ho…. a nice word about the difference between community version and pro version… no thank you. I prefer something sustained by free software standards.
- I tried XMPP, it was OK. But the clients weren't really good, I could have used bitlbee, the installation looked more complex than IRC.
Finally, IRC + ZNC with replay module is the winner. It was the easiest and best solution.
- it works
- it is Free Software
- it is frugal
- it is old
- it is minimalist
- it is feature complete for a small team chat.