As a result of this meeting and our review, the FSF and GNU have decided to relocate our IRC channels to Libera.Chat. Effective immediately, Libera is the official home of our channels, which include but are not limited to all those in the #fsf, #gnu, and #libreplanet namespaces.
On June 25th, at 10:00 AM EDT (UTC 14:00), we plan to forward any channels remaining in the #fsf, #gnu, and #libreplanet namespaces on the Freenode network to their corresponding ##fsf, ##gnu, and ##libreplanet counterparts. As per Freenode policy, channels with the ## prefix are unofficial “topical” channels, and accordingly, they will not be moderated by GNU or FSF staff.
Please note that the irc.gnu.org address, which has historically pointed to the Freenode network, will be disabled on June 25th, to give any users still connecting with this address sufficient notice.
It would be nice if they reforwarded irc.gnu.org to libera chat, in the future.
Self-hosting a IRC server is really not that hard… why on earth did they not just run their own?
All these communities just replacing Freenode with libera.chat are repeating the mistake that got us into this mess in the first place :(
Yeah… especially since GNU or the FSF isn’t some small 1-person hobby project, but basically one of the biggest free software projects in the world. They have their own code hosting service, why not a simple IRC server?
No regrets on monopolies, and no this time libera staff took measures to can’t be bought
Mozilla can’t be “bought” yet is pretty much in the hands of Google. The problem is the network structure not the legal entity running it.
Well… https://status.fsf.org/notice/4214348
That was quick.
Is there a suitable bridge between Libera.chat and Matrix? Would be cool if everything was accessible through Matrix clients.
Indeed there is! Just join a channel like
#fsf:libera.chatfrom your Matrix client.This bridge is not officially released yet, but it is very usable already.
See: https://matrix.org/blog/posts#liberachat-irc-bridge-work-continues
Spams the IRC channels with disconnects and other issues all the time. I know they still test it, but it was hardly better with their bridge to Freenode.
IMHO Matrix is a shitty IRC client, the only benefit it seems to have is the free-as-in-beer bouncer it offers in exchange for siphoning off all the data to their servers in the UK.
If you refer to matrix.org when you say “their servers”, the entire point of Matrix being decentralized, E2EE, and open is the fact that does not need to happen. Use an alternative homeserver, or host one yourself. Plus, not to mention one of Matrix’s main selling points is unifying communication platforms, which is exactly what is happening here.
Unless there’s something I’m missing of course, which I won’t dismiss as a possibility, but the fact you moderate the community for XMPP/Jabber doesn’t exactly save me from thinking there might be somewhat of a bias at play here.
Yes you are missing the point that we are talking about the official Matrix.org to libera.chat IRC bridge which runs of course on the matrix.org servers even if you connect through it from your homeserver.
Doesn’t libera use their own homeserver (e.g
#example:libera.chatinstead of#example-libera:matrix.org)? I haven’t heard anything about libera’s Matrix homeserver being a forwarder from matrix.org, TIL I suppose.Oh, I see what you’re talking about now.
Yes libera.chat does not run any [matrix] based infrastructure AFAIK.
In mind with what other people here are saying. Pushing matrix/element for stuff like this would be much better for the community. GNU and FSF still using IRC just sets up so only like hardcore oldschool enthusiasts that can get engaged in the movement which is a group that will die off pretty soon.
and the bridge stuff is not a viable option either. Or if so I’d like to see matrix bridged with IRC with matrix being main-
(I love XMPP but I don’t really see it happening and pushing XMPP is like pushing IRC at this point)
IRC has a much lower entry barrier and very nice webclients (for example KiwiIRC, Thelounge, Convos etc.), for public chat rooms it is IMHO the better technology.
Not really. People expect this and that from software and you have to play into that. IRC is antiquated and dying
If you want libre software to be a part of mainstream society you have to work for a group grander than just programmers. Continuing to use IRC is killing the community in the longrun in my opinion.
Edit: IRC is for most people 15-20 years older than me something they used when they were kids and never want to go back to. Pople younger than that aren’t nostalgic enough of accept how it works to use
So you want people to find a suitable homeserver and create an Matrix account just to shortly pass by a public chat to ask some simple questions? Doesn’t seem very realistic and your argument works even better with Discord because people already have an account there in most cases.
Compared to IRC, where you can have a nice slick looking web-client that only asks a nickname and nothing more?
You sound like you haven’t used IRC for years (or maybe never?) and have no idea how it works these days.
yeah, if they made a discord copy or something that is opensource and decentralised it would be much better.
I’m not old enough to have used IRC for years. I’ve used every once in a while and thought it was cool to try a old technology like that. But when I found out people are happy with the current state of IRC it quickly soured, the same as when I got to talk with people in XMPP world.
I’ve used KiwiIRC, but it is terrible branding, terrible most things that got to do with drawing people in.
IRC isn’t made for anyone but people but people like yourself. And insisting to use such a technology is excluding more people than it is including. Like how many non-programmers use IRC? none, none at all.
this is not acceptable to push for a organization if you want the organization to be gathering more than pure enthusiast people from the 80s and 90s, which is a very small demographic.
KiwiIRC is no branding? That’s just a name of a software to be used by server admins. It literally would be just part of the GNU website where people easily can click, type a nickname and have a nice easy to use and convenient chat interface that almost looks like Discord.
Edit: you seem to assume people want some new chat messenger, when in reality they are fine with using WhatsApp/Signal/Discord (what ever) with their friends and just want a quick way to join a public chat room via their browser.
I never understood, why everyone directly wanted to force to Matrix last years. My experience with Matrix was, that it’s slow, complicated key handling and old-school-looking web UI compared to, e.g. The Lounge. And as already said in the thread, forcing people to register an account, just to ask a single question in a public room is rude, when IRC only wants a nickname to chat.
Same with Discord. Joining a Discord channel is only possible with a private invite link, and one directly exposes the complete profile to anyone in the channel. Thus, IRC is simply the best in terms of data privacy, which is what the FSF and GNU represent too.
If you take the argumentation for Discord and Matrix, you could also directly throw Rocket.Chat and Mattermost into the ring. But that is not the point.
It’s not nice, it’s not convinient. No one but old school enthusiasts use IRC and they get thrown off using kiwi. It’s not enough having a nice graphical assety in a chat. It has to build on the communication strategy and branding strategy. It has to have an experience where you feel welcome.
I consider the whole IRC netwo0rk very bad in this regard and don’t have much of a future
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding what IRC is. It is not something like Matrix or XMPP or Signal or whatever. It is just a convenient & standardized way to have a simple public chat somewhere. If you want you can have a simple link on your website saying “click here to join with your preferred XMPP or Matrix client”. Works perfectly fine with IRC as the base and some bridges running on the server.
All respect to the GNU project but please lest’s replace IRC once and for all with Matrix.
blasphemy
With XMPP
I mean, XMPP is not a bad idea, having that said, there’s a thriving community of matrix users.
and an at least equally thriving community of XMPP users… They just tend to be less vocal about it and just use it because it actually works nicely.
I don’t think i have seen a real problem with the Matrix protocol, it works nicely for me, many open source projects are opting to use Matrix instead of XMPP, in that sense, it’s not about which community is more vocal, Matrix is just being seen as an ideal replacement for Discord and IRC at the same time.
Can you tell me a single open-source project that actually switched away from XMPP? Yes there are a few that switched from IRC to Matrix, but is vastly pales compared to those that sadly switched from IRC to Discord.
My very subjective user experience with Matrix: super slow and laggy messages (has improve a bit lately), the element client is a resource hog with very little actual functionality (and everything feels half-baked an buggy), and the bridges break left and right. In addition to that nearly everything is centralized on the matrix.org servers and even on those there are just hundreds of lurkers and otherwise mostly dead channels (and people that just seem to use Matrix as an IRC bouncer). If I compare that to IRC or XMPP… well those have seen better days for sure, but there are at least real people talking in the channels about topics that interest me.
Honestly, i wouldn’t say that people are switching away from XMPP in favor of Matrix… because i think most FLOSS projects never switched from IRC to XMPP to begin with, i don’t have proofs, but i don’t have any doubts, i assume that most projects switched from IRC to Matrix because XMPP was never an option to begin with.
No
I see no reasons to keep using IRC, it’s not as safe or private as Matrix or XMPP is.
