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Please don't use Discord for FOSS projects (drewdevault.com)

submitted 6 months ago by starman@programming.dev to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 42 points 6 months ago

The strongest argument for me is that discord is commercial, borne of venture capital spent on operating at a loss for years to gain users. It is therefore bound for a turn towards profit and enshittification, sooner, rather than later.

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

The flip-side of that argument is that "librefosschat" alternative might also be dead next year when it runs out of money :/

At least commercial vc enshitiffied stuff tends to get ridden into the ground, so there is a long offramp.

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Not really. Something you can self-host, like irc, xmpp or matrix, has an infinite offramp.

[-] Chriswild@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Idk about infinite, if they stop getting updates they will eventually get phased out and if you can't download the application it's also dead. All that aside the sun is going to go super nova eventually.

Also a lot of people don't want to self host. I doubt you self host your own Lemmy instance for instance.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 6 points 6 months ago

IRC works since decades, same for XMPP. I think that is a pretty strong indication that it will continue to work just fine.

And not everyone needs to self host, like one in a thousand is more than sufficient for a community to have their own self-hosted chat system.

[-] Chriswild@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Decades is far from infinite

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 months ago

You are not infinite either 😅

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 5 points 6 months ago

I host my own matrix instance.

I wouldn't mind hosting my own lemmy instance either, but as it's a public platform anyway I don't have the same qualms about using an instance hosted by someone else. So I opted not to take on any more work on that.

Not everyone needs to self host, you might get away with knowing someone who does. And no, I wouldn't accept a nextcloud account hosted by just anyone, but my siblings and parents happily utilize ones provided by me.

And back when teamspeak, mumble, ventrilo, minecraft servers, cs servers, etc. all had to be "self-hosted" there were plenty of service providers who would do all the technical work for the layman, in exchange for direct payment. Making all those services quite accessible to anyone.

That was so much better than how today we "pay" by getting datamined.

[-] Chriswild@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I agree with you here but I wouldn't want to pay for a host for some FOSS project and I wouldn't host that on my own IP either.

[-] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 4 points 6 months ago

Why not? How do you expect to realize a fair and good internet, controlled by its users instead of corporations driven by motives far removed from what is in the interest of users, or even humanity as a species?

You still don't have to, I'll do it. But someone has to. Would you donate to your own instance?