Re: Matrix IRC bridge considered harmful

[Nirbheek Chauhan <nirbheek chauhan gmail com>]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 5:29 AM Christian Hergert <christian hergert me> wrote:
> On 2/12/20 3:32 PM, Britt Yazel wrote:
> > Can you explain to me what the big issue with web clients are? I keep
> > hearing over and over again that developers don't want to use web
> > clients, either in browser or with Electron, but I don't recall ever
> > hearing a "why" in there.
>
> I'll repeat what I told you last month.
>
> I don't want a browser open when I work, yet I need to collaborate with
> other GNOME developers on code and platform issues. I keep Builder open,
> a terminal, and IRC. That's it.
>
> For those of our community with ADHD and similar neuro-divergence, this
> can be a necessity to get things done. The only way I get through my
> todo list is to reduce all possibilities for distraction.
>
> I suspect you wont get many people telling you that though, because to
> do so requires a level of emotional labor to share with the world their
> medical history.

Thanks for sharing this important perspective with us, Christian. :)

RocketChat also has a standalone Electron client, do you foresee any
issues with using that?

Personally, I don't want more Electron things on my desktop since it
kills performance on Wayland for me. In theory, we can "just" write a
native client for it; does Rocket Chat have a documented and versioned
API?

I am also hesitant for us to start using another open-core/enterprise
product where the company will be interested and enthusiastic in the
beginning because getting us to use it will be good for publicity.
Then once we're dependent on their product, they will start ignoring
us and our issues completely — leaving us with missing steps in our
workflow (hey, first-time contributor, please tick the "allow
maintainer commits checkbox") or forcing us to write bots.

I'm sure eventually we'll end up having to fork. Would rather not be
in that soup with two critical bits of infrastructure.

Cheers,
Nirbheek