Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat apps

Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by judge2020 on Saturday November 14, 2020 @10:53AM (#25093023)

OSS primarily uses a non-free way to host source code (GitHub), so it's not much different to use Discord.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by rednut on Saturday November 14, 2020 @11:01AM (#25093088)

So what if Github itself is not OSS? The technology behind is already open source and decentralized. You can switch to a Gitlab instance with just a few mouse clicks while also migrating your issues and pull requests.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by thekyle on Saturday November 14, 2020 @08:05PM (#25097137)

I don't believe issues or pull requests are part of the Git repo. If there is a way to migrate them it would involve some GitHub API which could be shut down.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by Arnavion on Saturday November 14, 2020 @08:28PM (#25097290)

The commits in pull requests are part of the git repo, in that they can be fetched from the repo's remote. The comments are not.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by samoa42 on Sunday November 15, 2020 @07:08AM (#25100537)

as said; the issues are not part of the repo.

as much as many projects could use a clean slate here, i dont think the burden of migranting them manually or the act of just dumping them is realistic.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by CharlesW on Saturday November 14, 2020 @02:46PM (#25095034)

> So what if Github itself is not OSS? The technology behind is already open source…

So is much of the technology behind Discourse.[1]

[1] https://discord.com/open-source (click on "OS Libraries")

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by jaemoe on Saturday November 14, 2020 @10:54AM (#25093031)

And it's sad to see.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by snazz on Saturday November 14, 2020 @10:57AM (#25093051)

There are at least a few different "OSS scenes" that have different priorities. More principled, idealistic developers fall under a different category than more pragmatic ones, so it should be no surprise that they use different tools.

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by frabbit on Saturday November 14, 2020 @01:09PM (#25094184)

Using non-Free tools has been shown to be distinctly non-pragmatic under a wide variety of considerations.

A better term would be something like "Tied programmers" or "Dependent progammers". Maybe "sharecropper progammers"?

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Re:Using Matrix to replace proprietary and centralized chat ... by snazz on Saturday November 14, 2020 @01:58PM (#25094627)

"Sharecropper programmers" might be an accurate way of describing developers for Apple platforms, but that's not what is happening when people use GitHub and Discord to work on open-source software. They can easily move their Git hosting and chat to another platform—they just choose to use the popular, coincidentally non-OSS, platform for its pragmatism.

A large base of existing users, easy onboarding, and good visibility makes a big difference for many OSS projects. Using a self-hosted Git hosting system and mailing list is a lot of work—and it adds a not-insignificant barrier to entry for potential contributors. What issues exist with popular, proprietary Git and chat tools that make them unsuitable for OSS development?

What are some of the considerations you're thinking of where using a popular option is not pragmatic?

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