[libcamera-devel] Greetings :)

[Laurent Pinchart]

Hello Yaser,

On Wed, Aug 09, 2023 at 10:03:03PM -0500, Yaser Ahmed via libcamera-devel wrote:
> Hi there libcamera devs. Is it possible to use another form of chat
> communication instead of IRC for it does not save chat history and is not the
> best in organization of questions/topics. Also there is no way of sharing code
> via text or code formatted text block. maybe I am wrong about IRC, since I am
> an IRC noob but here are some open source alternatives if you do consider
> moving to a more robust instant messenger.
> 
>   • https://mattermost.com/pricing/ (self-hosted)
>   • https://zulip.com/plans/ (free 10,000 messages of search history or
>     self-hosted)
>   • https://www.rocket.chat/pricing (self-hosted)

We picked IRC partly out of habbit, but also because it has a large
number of open-source clients that can accommodate a wide variety of use
cases. Mattermost, Zulip and Rocket Chat would be considered as a big
step backwards in usability for many people (including myself).

IRC is indeed not best at organizing topics, but the #libcamera channel
has never been intended as such. It is mostly meant for casual
communication, or interactions that benefit from real time discussions.
For topics that require more in-depth and structured discussions
(including discussing code), the libcamera mailing list is a better
alternative, and it has a publicly available archive.

This being said, we should probably consider an IRC logger. If you want
to maintain a presence on IRC, you could run a client on an
always-connected system (this is what I personally do, running irssi in
a screen session), or join the #libcamera channel through Matrix thanks
to the Matrix <-> IRC bridge.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart