https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35970869
And in the comments of the bun 0.8 announcement, the same question generates very little interest and some well every other project uses it, so...:
> Choosing proprietary tools and services for your free software project ultimately sends a message to downstream developers and users of your project that freedom of all users—developers included—is not a priority.
— Matt Lee
And I think Deno uses it.
> Discord-hate is a double standard that is not applied to any service
What does this mean? Dropbox/Amazon/Google/Windows get criticism across the web and on HN regularly, some of those far more than Discord.
> to the extent that comments criticizing Discord appear with extreme regularity on threads that should be completely unrelated
I don't get it. Are you implying a conspiracy?
Discord is just an added communication channel, mostly for the community.
Relevant discussions happen on GH.
I am part of numerous programming discords and I just see no issue with them being on discord, again, starting from the fact being there is far from being a requirement for anything really.
Has Discord ever asked you to provide and confirm your phone number to continue using it?
But otherwise, yeah, I would warn against potential vendor lock-in, especially if that service is not open-source.
Well, and joining most discussions require an account, and if your alternative communication platform is Discord, we see all the same issues of lock-in.
> What I can tell you is that, to my surprise, Discord’s accessibility has apparently improved in recent years, and more blind people are using it now. One of my blind friends told me that most Discord functionality is very accessible and several blind communities are using it. He also told me about a group of young blind programmers who are using Discord to discuss the development of a new open-source screen reader to replace the current Orca screen reader for GNOME
Discord is honestly a great place for FOSS to house their communications. I find all of the articles claims very haphazard:
> When you choose Discord, you are legitimizing their platform and divesting from FOSS platforms
It is legit? It's free? It has loads of compelling features, is very accessible, and - most importantly... Also, choosing Discord does not take value away from FOSS communication platforms.
> Use IRC
It isn't IRC which is very inaccessible to lots of people new to computers and software in general.
Yes, but this ignores the others issues the post brings up: Users who cannot afford new enough hardware to make the resource-intensive client pleasant to use are also left by the wayside.
Or: Discord also declines service to users in countries under US sanctions, such as Iran.
> Discord is honestly a great place for FOSS to house their communications ... Discord does not take value away from FOSS communication platforms.
The blog's author, and others such as myself disagree. Discord chats are not indexible by search engines, so solutions are harder to find. You need a Discord account, and you need to join the channel to even see chat and use the search feature. Discord is proprietary and non-extensible because of it. Lastly, Discord is also profit-motivated, so they can shut things down or add limitations because they need to maintain a profit, and there would be nothing we can do about it. "Enshittification" as HN users love to say, is practically inevitable.
> It isn't IRC which is very inaccessible to lots of people new to computers and software in general.
Which client are you speaking of? :) The beauty of IRC, Matrix, XMPP, etc is that you have the choice and freedom (without being legally threatened by Discord Inc.) to build your own client.
Instead of bashing library authors that have already so much to think, why don't you propose a discord replacement and pay for it, while providing the same ease of use for the users and the same features from channels, threads, third party apps/plugins, video conferencing, etc?
I'm glad you enjoy Discord! And thanks for your hard work. But I disagree, and all of the issues with Discord I pointed out above still persist despite your love for the UX.
> Instead of bashing library authors that have already so much to think
I never bashed library authors.
> why don't you propose a discord replacement and pay for it
I engage in communities that use Zulip and Matrix. Zulip is free for open-source projects [1], and I donate to a small community that hosts its own Matrix server.
> while providing the same ease of use for the users and the same features from channels, threads, third party apps/plugins, video conferencing, etc?
We're kinda getting away from the point here. No one is suggesting that there is a FOSS alternative to Discord that has 100% feature parity.
Wait… people can’t run web browsers?
it does though. it's the same vicious cycle that allowed microsoft to gain control of the OS market: developers write programs for windows (because that's where the users are) and users run windows (because that's where the programs run). the more people agree to use discord, the more it becomes "the place where the <x> community is", the harder it becomes for any community to not use it.
9/10 discord users don't understand or care about this at all. which is why it's of utmost importance that developers - especially open source developers, presumably developing open source software for a reason - encourage discussion on other platforms.
Free as in gratis, sure. But as in libre? No, it’s definitely proprietary & it’s free because users are the product (data collected and upselling Nitro); not every user wants to give up their privacy freedoms to participate. Discord’s not federated so users will be required to create an account & agree to the ToS & CoC of Discord, not the community running it. Discord has also been hostile towards folks trying to make alternative clients to meet usability needs & certain kind of bots.
Without IRCV3 & bouncer it would be a difficult/unexpected experience for a new user. Luckily IRC isn’t the only libre option. If you want to keep the system requirements low XMPP MUCs are good & allow federation. If you want newer bells & whistles at the cost of system requirements federated Matrix can be considered (tho centralization concerns around Matrix.org having the most users, most used server, most used client, & controls the spec). There are bridges between all of these that you can choose as many or as few as meets the community needs such as a community-hosted XMPP main server in a neutral country with bridges to IRC & Discord.
There's some room for debate about offering Discord as a bridged option. But having the official community chat only on Discord? How is there even a question?
Both are proprietary websites owned by for-profit companies. Both require you to create an account in order to participate in discussion.
Don't get me wrong. I get small developers defaulting to infrastructure they don't have to set up and maintain themselves, and I understand wanting to meet people where they're at. But it's definitely a problem that GitHub plays such a central role in F/OSS development, too.
1. Git is distributed by design. Hosting on Github tends to not be controversial because that code can also live on Gitea/Sourcehut/your private git server at the same time. If Github goes down, it does not really matter. Very different from Discord, where there is no way to actually backup server/channel data, and attempting to do so may be a violation of the ToS and get you IP banned.
2. Your argument hinges on the fact that you have never seen an open-source project criticized, but it does happen. The blogpost in the parent comment even suggests not hosting on Github.
Some time ago I asked them whether they planned to ever become Free Software so it could be actually safe and have a community around it, and after a couple of messages they went (not verbatim, but in spirit) "oh, open source? lolno", missing the point entirely in multiple ways.
Taking into account their massive teen-focused PR campaign - which is a particularly social phase of human growth and FOMO reigns supreme, their predecessor OpenFeint's demise including a privacy lawsuit, the amounts of data and metadata implicitly and explicitly collected, it's at least _likely enough to distrust it_. The doors in the back are bound to be giving that sweet personal data to whomever has a big enough money stick, and/or other non-trustable agencies.
Could you link to the program they are working on? Nothing appears when searching for "orca screen reader for gnome replacement."
Creating a channel on Matrix.org is free.
Libera.Chat & OFTC offer free IRC for open source—& can depending on the community be a welcome bridged platform for any alternative as IRC requires the least resources to run (tho if you need rooms with encryption, that won’t be an option).
This has probably been asked before, but has there been any thoughts about moving community chat to a platform other than Discord? Discord has been brought up many times on HN for its accessibility/privacy/proprietary lock-in concerns that don't seem to be in line with the spirit of open-source. Also see [1].
[1] https://drewdevault.com/2021/12/28/Dont-use-Discord-for-FOSS...