toastal

Seems like someþing folks should legislate against… ðat is unless ð lobby have all ð politicians in ðeir pockets. 🙃

The biggest shake-ups in a while outside we-don’t-use-X (no systemd, etc.) are the declarative distros like NixOS & Guix. You do the whole system setup & config thru a single file (or broken into multiple). Learning curve is very high for the config but the payoff is less things changing out from under you & setting up new machines & rolling back to working states without resorting to FS snapshots. They are good languages to learn for software development too where you want repeatable software.

I use the note to self capability of my XMPP server to send a message to myself for these sort of one-offs. I would never want my data in the hands of some proprietary service if I have the option—sharing data just to yourself on these services also means it is Big Tech’s data now too. All of the XMPP clients are super lightweight.

Bigger cases, I will use scp, rsync, or magic wormhole. Or just using removeable storage.

The ability to defederate arguable makes it more free & open even if it isn’t what I would prescribe.

I recall having some fun with League of Legends when you could just join chat & chat rooms thru a regular XMPP client. This was convenient at work on Linux to not need a working client to catch important messages from teammates. But everyone wants a walled garden now.

Which means your two close friends & the corporate Discord data harvester.

With friends I can at least tell them to use a privacy-respecting or self hosted option, but I still don’t understand how businesses actively prefer US-based, proprietary services such as Google Meet for meetings. Do they really think Google & others aren’t record & training on their private business meeting data?

Not open? Wat

Privacy is one part. The cost of joining & maintaining a server on the network is the other. Many servers have shut their doors due to expensive hosting. If you are lenient on how many messages need to actually be stored on the server for archives, self-hosting is now much more accessible which leads to a healthier, more decentralized network since more nodes can afford to join.

You can still creating your own archives in your clients or on your specific server via s2s communications, but Matrix has this as a network requirement for eventual consistency. You can’t have the “search all messages in the last 5 years” feature without eventual consistency—but this is the point I am trying to make: copying the Slack/Telegram/Discord model makes this a requirement to have in a decentralized sense which costs way too much. Step back & reassess if copying this model is the right call. We were fine last decade without this.

Drag can archive it locally just fine or on Drag’s own server if using a different protocol. Is it worth storing hundreds of thousands of messages & attachments that price out self-hosting & low-spec hosters & medium-sized communities on a budget? These storage costs add up quickly & without lots of nodes, the network is no longer federated but held by a few mega hosts like Matrix.org & a sprinkling of single-user hosts. I have seen many servers shut down due to costs. This tradeoff just isn’t worth it for a triving, decentralized platform (Mastodon suffers similar duplication issues).

Libraries are clearly communist… or anarchist… either way, I hate it!

It is a standard, starting at RFC 6120. Everyone can use it today. 😃

Since we are on a decentralized platform & many of us care about federation, do yourself a service & read this little history lesson: How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) (archived)

Same reason it is weird to want a FOSS copy of the UX of Slack/Telegram/Discord in Matrix instead of realizing you don’t need or want the chat history to persist for eternity. Good thing you can choose a different protocol/service in these cases.