[QGIS-Developer] #qgis on Freenode

[techdude1996]

Greg:

> rather than using terms like 21st century

My remark about 21st century was meant to be comedic in nature, and not
offensive (along with the joke that I'm replying to a mailing list while
talking about IRC being old). IRC was invented in 1988, and was a great
technology for it's time; and just like the shapefile, it is time to replace
it with a more modern system. QGIS replaced the default export option from
shapefile to GeoPackage for this reason (and many others).


> implicit claim that all older things are bad.

I in no way said that IRC was bad, but just outdated and lacking modern
features and amenities. There are many more modern technologies like Matrix
(which you did mention) as a direct IRC replacement.


> I think Free Software projects should decline to use proprietary
> interaction platforms.

Which is why I also proposed Rocket Chat. Blender, for the very reason you
pointed out, uses it (blender.chat). Rocket Chat is a Free Open Source
Software, and is also easily self hostable. Another example would be unfa,
he is a professional music and sound designer that exclusively uses FOSS and
Linux (Manjaro to be specific). He does have a Discord, but encourages
people to use his self-hosted Rocket Chat server, and has a bridge bot to
connect the two.


> My impression is that people who both don't like IRC and care about Free
> Software are tending to move to matrix, which is reasonably easily self
> hostable.

The reason behind my comment was to try and move to modern technology for
the benefit of the QGIS community. Open Source projects develop great
communities that you don't really get with proprietary software. (Just look
at the blender community for example). QGIS could use a nice modern
community that will attract users to it, instead of comments like "eww, they
still use IRC???"

You will always have people who would rather stick with older technology.
You can't please everyone, and by attempting to do so, you end up
displeasing everyone. You do try to please the majority, and your target
audience. Moving to a more modern technology brings a lot of benefits to
both existing and new users.

In relation to the last paragraph, here's a related xkcd comic:  Team Chat
<https://xkcd.com/1782/>  



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