Re: Thoughs about communication

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 8:55 AM Allan Day <allanpday gmail com> wrote:

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 8:56 PM, Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me> wrote:

...

My two cents, and bear with me on my slight rant - I really hate the idea of depending on a web app like riot.  It's like admitting that we've lost the whole application space and that we're going browser.  I know that is not what is intended, but that will be the perception.  

I'd like to do this, but I'd like to start putting resources into creating a viable chat client that works and is designed as a competition to a web app.  Maybe that means some kind of contest or something.  I'm not really worried about actually writing one after all matrix is an open standard, but the design one that shows the advantage of running something native should be a challenge that we need to meet head on.

...

While a native chat application would be nice, making it a requirement would be a real mistake in my opinion. A couple of reasons for that:

It isn't that I want to make it a requirement.  It's more of a challenge given the prevalence of web based applications.  I just want to make sure that we are aware that we are doing that in this particular instance.

 

First, chat is fragmented. There's no common standard, and whatever we choose is going to be one player among many. That puts it in a different category from many of our core applications.

A good point.  I suppose in this case, nobody will be happy because potential contributors would be unhappy that we didn't pick the chat program they are using.  I know a number of us are using telegram since last GUADEC on occasion.

 

Second, the GNOME developer community is already spread too thin. One of the most pressing questions we have right now is how we can focus our efforts on critical areas. In order to do that, we need to leverage other projects and initiatives when it benefits us. Because when we try to do everything in house, it hurts us, whether it's maintaining our own infrastructure, writing our own tools, or implementing every app ourselves. We end up being stuck behind the curve.

Yes, I am aware of that and I will always rush first to champion the leveraging of other groups and organizations.  The social aspects of that is that we also become insular when we need to be forging relationships with the groups around us.

Obviously we're a community project and people will work on whatever itch they want to scratch. I wouldn't discourage someone from working on something if that's what they want to do. But that's different from making native apps a hard requirement in cases like this.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to make it a hard requirement, at the moment, I just want to get it working and we'll figure out the client part at a later date.  Today, most  people are used to using chat applications either from phone or from their desktop using a web browser so I see no pressing need to put resources into a client unless it's just a fun project.

 

We need to learn to tread lightly, embrace new things, and recognise that we can't do everything ourselves. If we do that, I think we could find ourselves in a pretty exciting place.

I agree completely.

sri

 

Allan