Thanks ebassi. I mostly agree with your reply, but there were a few points I'd like to raise in response (not that it changes my argument, just hoping to make my concerns clear). On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 01:32:18PM +0000, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
Considering the state of Telepathy, this is not at all a blocker. Actually, it may very well be the push needed to phase it out from our platform.
My point was less about Telepathy specifically and more about general access to the platform using GNOME services. And as poor Telepathy's current state is, it's the only technology we have separating us from the wilderness of a separate application for every single chat platform (besides Pidgin, but that's a worse alternative in many respects).
If you can use a browser with HTTPS then you're likely going to be able to use IRC on a web form, or better user experiences. If you cannot access anything outside of IRC then you're living in a severely constrained network, managed by someone who doesn't really want you to join online communities, and IRC is just a way to work around those cases. Some platforms, like Slack, do offer IRC bridges as well, in any case, with degraded functionality.
Either that, or you're running a configuration that Some Browser doesn't agree with (for almost five releases running Firefox does racy rendering stuff that gets tripped up on my hardware -- Telepathy clients tend to be immune to frequent browser bugs). Or you're using a laptop, on which Some Browser takes a significant toll on battery life even if you're just using it for a trivial chat web app. Or maybe (for whatever reason) you're limited to communicating on a toaster oven which doesn't have the horsepower for Some Browser. Not that any of that is particularly relevant in the context of a Matrix bridge, but there are all sorts of reasons (with varying degrees of validity ;) that people would be locked out of (or in the least have hindered access to) a browser-only chat platform.
Just because you found yourself happy with IRC it does not imply IRC is without fault, or without features that are, indeed, required by other people. If it doesn't cost you anything to stay on IRC while other people move to different standards — assuming there's a bridge, at the very least as a transition mechanism — then asking "what is the cost" is just stop energy.
I had interpreted the email originally posted to this list to be discussing possible *replacements* for IRC going into the future. In that context, I don't think it's fair to label valid concerns as 'stop energy'. Like I said, the Matrix bridge plan is sensible. My reservations regard the idea of using it as a transition technology with the goal of phasing out GimpNet operations in the future. Yes, IRC is my preferred platform. And, absolutely, it follows that I have some bias. But that shouldn't disqualify from consideration the benefits of having a simple, flexible system; one that serves many of its required purposes extremely effectively. Thanks
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