Re: Thoughs about communication

[Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro gnome org>]

On Thu, 2017-01-26 at 20:56 +0000, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 7:47 AM Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>
> wrote:
> > Attracting and retaining contributors has to be the most important
> > consideration. It's worth noting that IRC cuts in a few different
> > directions here: on the one hand, IRC means there's no barrier
> > between us and all the existing Free Software contributors/projects
> > who are also using IRC. On the other hand, for contributors who are
> > used to modern tools, IRC probably feels like a huge step backwards
> > - it isn't user friendly, isn't attractive, and it doesn't work
> > well if you're not in one of the time zones that are popular with
> > our community.
> >
> > In some ways, GNOME has the worst of both worlds - we're using poor
> > tech which has the advantage of adoption, and then we go and use a
> > relatively isolated server, so we miss out on the additional
> > traffic we might get on Freenode.
>
> Let me add my two cents here.  I've been wanting to do something like
> this for some time and as Allan has alluded to, there has been
> discussions amongst engagement team people around this.
>
> My two cents, and bear with me on my slight rant - I really hate the
> idea of depending on a web app like riot.  It's like admitting that
> we've lost the whole application space and that we're going browser. 
> I know that is not what is intended, but that will be the perception.
>  
>
> I'd like to do this, but I'd like to start putting resources into
> creating a viable chat client that works and is designed as a
> competition to a web app.  Maybe that means some kind of contest or
> something.  I'm not really worried about actually writing one after
> all matrix is an open standard, but the design one that shows the
> advantage of running something native should be a challenge that we
> need to meet head on.

It would be really awesome to have a GNOME Chat app based on Matrix.
Instead of implementing support for multiple protocols in the app, like
we did with Empathy, it would focus on doing one thing well -- Matrix,
both text and video chat (OK, two things) -- and then the quality of
the support for other protocols would depend on the quality of Matrix
bridges and would not be something the app has to worry about. Trying
to support 20 different protocols really took its toll on the Empathy
user experience. Requires manpower. Maybe someone will see this mail
and become interested. Maybe not.

Michael