[Qgis-psc] Chat unification

Mon Nov 9 01:51:50 PST 2015

Hi

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Hugo Mercier <hugo.mercier at oslandia.com>
wrote:

> On 08/11/2015 19:54, Tim Sutton wrote:
> > Discussion 1) Do we find it acceptable to use non-FOSS software as part
> > of our project offering?
> > =========================================================================
> >
> > Lets first do a little stock take:
> >
> > * When we decided to drop our forums some years ago we were happy to
> > adopt to using stack exchange (also a proprietary platform) because it
> > provided a better platform with good critical mass, and I don’t really
> > see how this discussion is substantially different. StackExchange and
> > the contributions of people like Anita and Nathan on it are a huge asset
> > to the QGIS project in terms of helping our community, and I believe
> > this far outweighs the fact that the platform is proprietary.
> >
> > * We have always hosted our code on a proprietary platform - we moved
> > our source code from SourceForge (which was FOSS until 2001 and
> > thereafter proprietary) to GitHub (which is proprietary). Funnily enough
> > we are still listed as ‘beta' software on source forge:
> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgis/ :-)
> >
> > * We run our domain on go daddy.com <http://daddy.com> which is
> proprietary.
> >
> > * We build our windows binaries using proprietary compiler (in the old
> > days Radim I think used to build under mingw but that had issues with
> > linking to binaries created on other compilers)
> >
> > * Our OSX build is built using clang which I guess is FOSS, but I think
> > much of the glue that makes it usable is proprietary OSX stuff
> >
> > * We host our services on Hetzner which uses a proprietary web panel for
> > administering restarts, tickets etc.
> >
> > * We even make it accessible for people to use proprietary databases
> > like Oracle, SQL Server,
> >
> > * We have an official twitter account somewhere again on a proprietary
> > platform
> >
> > * Even in OSGEO, our parent project it looks like they are using slack
> > (and probably other proprietary stuff that I am not aware of)
> > - http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Slack-and-OSGeo-td5220636.html
>
> Many of the items you cite do not have impacts on final users. I am
> still free not to use Oracle or SQL Server. I am free to recompile QGIS
> on Windows with mingw if I wish. Having domains on godaddy does not
> restrain my freedom. I am free not to follow the twitter account.
>
> About code hosting, this is a bit in-between, I can get the source code
> without having github account. But I need one to propose changes.
> This is the only small "exception" to FOSS I see we really have.
>
> If the official chat channel is now a proprietary software, we are
> imposing it to the users.
>

Yes good points you make...although for the twitter argument logic above,
the counter to that would be that people are free to not use the chat /
forums too. I guess by your logic above you are saying, 'twitter is not
important, chat is' .... which I probably agree with....

Anyway I like your distinction between what *we* use and what we ask our
users to use - it makes the rules of engagement much clearer...

>
> But I agree there are some exceptions to accept in order to be practical
> and user-friendly :)
>
> If free alternatives exist and does not need a huge effort to use, then
> go for it.
>
>
Agreed

> So ... RocketChat seems nice.
>

Yup I am ok that we test it and if it works well do a sales pitch to the
community to make it our official channel.

>
> Other alternative: a gentle IRC bot could be used to implement most of
> the missing items. For me, the one missing feature is the history.
>

There are channel logs at but it's not quite the same thing as being able
to scroll back directly in the channel. There is option to put your IRC
chat into a remote server running screen, but that is not end user
friendly. I still haven't any decent android IRC client, though its been a
while since last I checked...

Regards

Tim

>
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