[libcamera-devel] Greetings :)

[Nicolas Dufresne]

Le jeudi 10 août 2023 à 13:10 +0300, Laurent Pinchart via libcamera-devel a
écrit :
> 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).

My impression is that for the devs in this project, only Matrix could possibly
qualify, its democratized and have terminal only clients, which from what I
understood is what you personally want and will enforce. Also why gitlab keeps
being disqualified in favour of patchwork, mailing list and other typically
Linux project tools.

I'm not judging, though I strongly prefer when things are said clearly. To me, I
read this as maintainers personal preference. In regard of IRC, I like IRC,
cause it can't really be used for anything else then the purpose of plain
discussions. Its low security can even be seen as a feature, in the sense that
folks on other plaforms sometimes forget that they are speaking in public space.

> 
> 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.

For those don't live for working on text terminal, there exists web base IRC
client that will help with the lack of missing modern features. Matrix bridge is
of course an option (have both web and native client), it has some features for
images and paste were it will show a link in the IRC log. Though, I heard the
bridges are not always stable.

Other alternatives:
- IRC Cloud, a pay server, but you don't have to host it.
- The lounge (self hosted) https://thelounge.chat/
- .. please includes yours

I personally use The Lounge, I believe its much nicer then keeping a screen or
pip proxy running on a server somewhere. It maintains your presence and the most
important for me, it works on any of my computers with a web browser, including
firefox on my phone.

Nicolas