this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Fuck discord.
Why?
Idk about them, but it's a centralized, locked-down service that absorbs and holds information and data hostage like tomorrow.
As someone who's trying to completely avoid Discord, it's quite frustrating how many communities and projects will put important information in their Discords, and nowhere else. You have to have an account to see it, and it also isn't searchable in a search engine. It is actually quite terrible for pretty much everyone.
Element/Matrix lets you peek into public chats and servers/spaces without an account, so it can definitely be done. They won't do it though, because they gotta make you feel dat FOMO lol.
I mean cool, but good luck convincing the vast majority of users leaving Discord for Matrix.
This development is beneficial for the Linux gaming ecosystem, proprietary be damned.
I can acknowledge all that and still say fuck discord. I never mentioned herding everyone over, I just explained why I think it's a parasite and why I have a strong disliking towards it.
Don't need the majority. The majority is not even interested in these communities. The ones that are, are likely proponents of FOSS themselves and should (in theory) switch over.
All you have to do is bridge the two together and have the Matrix one shown more prominently.
Do you expect your average Discord user to bother going through such hoops?
Sorry. What I meant was that the project maintainers should do that, so the Discord users can use Discord but Matrix is still the main option.
Project leaders?
Maintainers. The people that make the project.
Thought we werr talking about the communities.
While the community is often what is providing the information, one person or group is the one creating and distributing the Discord server. You can't have an entire community create a Discord server; one person has to do that, and it's most often the project maintainers. I was saying that the people creating the Discord servers should also create Matrix spaces and bridge the two together.
Hmm, interesting. I mean, I personally do not engage in specific projects. In my case, I did not find e.g. large enough mathematics server and PL community server in Matrix. This made me rarely visit matrix..
Matrix is a better platform for realtime communication, but it has the same issue with needing an account and being difficult to search. Any discussions that take place on Discord or Matrix will be fleeting, as it prioritizes only the most recent discussion in the chat. Thus making long form discussions about particular topics impossible.
All technical discussions should be archived on a searchable forum. If you are using a source forge like GitHub and GitLab, then public discussions should take place there. There's no better place for discussions and questions about code than in the same place where the code is hosted itself. Platform integrations make it very easy to associate discussions to commits and merge requests.
While not ideal, even hosted forum platforms like Lemmy and Reddit are still better than using a chat client. If only to serve as a platform for broader public discussions and questions. People are more likely to already have a Lemmy or Reddit account than they are to have a GitHub or GitLab account.
I do agree Discord shouldn't be used as a Gitlab issue tracker, yet development teams still insists on continuing this practice.
Based