Better but a the real alternative is what we had before: publicly visible forums, mailing lists with an archive, etc. I'm not going to sign up for your discussion group without being able to get a feel for the community first.
Indeed. There can never be just one platform for project communication, because there are different kinds of communication - mostly sorted between synchronous and asynchronous.
So, IRC, Matrix (these can even be interconnected) for synchronous, mailing lists or forums for asynchronous.
And of course issue tracker, where some topical communication can happen as well, but that could completely be covered by mailing lists.
There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure.
"There's no reason to ever have anything non-open in your FOSS project's infrastructure."
Except, that it is easier to set up? What you describe sounds reasonable. But someone needs to set all that up and host it and needs to be trusted etc.
So I guess if many people get involved and do set this up, they would convince the rest of the team to join them. But right now it is just a demand for more work for them.
You are correct, of course. If the project leadership does not see a value in using open infrastructure, of course it would look like additional (and unreasonable) demand. It's up to them.
Would you volunteer in setting up a forum for ladybird and host it and can you convince Kling and co. that you will be around to host it for the next years to come?
Because that is a project in itself and as much as I despise discord, I understand why they just went with it.
If I had a serious interest in the project (more than, say, maybe sending a patch here and there to fix my pet peeve), I would definitely volunteer for something like that if there was a demand. That's something I quite enjoy, and am reasonably good at, I think.
And as for me being there for years to come, who can say that for sure? I would absolutely try to. For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?
"For that matter, will Discord still be here next year?"
Probably way more likely, than a random volunteer. Kling said they used discord because it was easy. No energy spend there. Migrating the communication structure is work and energy. Friction.
But so far I also did not followed developement closely, because I did not set up discord yet and do not really want to. But I realize I am not in the majority here and I do not think I am in a position to demand anything here. Your words sound a bit like demanding something.
Not demanding, sorry if it came out like that. :) Just a bit of constructive criticism.
As for random volunteers disappearing, the protection against that is easy - increase the bus factor, by multiple people having necessary access, and by keeping your infrastructure documented. This should be table stakes for any project that becomes even marginally popular.
Then, if a random volunteer disappears, things might slow down due to lack of manpower, sure, but not come to a screeching halt.
You can't increase bus factor with Discord, since it's out of your control.
"As for random volunteers disappearing, the protection against that is easy - increase the bus factor, by multiple people having necessary access"
That is not easy. It works till the first drama and then some angry person deletes it all, or changes and takes the keys with them. So you have to really take care who to trust.
"If the project leadership does not see a value in using open infrastructure"
And I do not think he ever said that. He just said it was easier this way for the moment. Not that discord is meant to be the solution till eternity.
Sure, nightmare scenarios can happen, but how often do they, really? There are many successful FOSS projects who have teams of volunteers taking care of infrastructure in this way for years, if not decades, and how many bad situations have we had overall?
Simply put, this approach is proven to work. We can always "butwhatif?" ourselves into a corner and get paralyzed because of that, but it's senseless.
It is not a nightmare scenario, but a pretty common human thing to make drama.
So I totally agree, that there are tons of examples where it worked and in the long term I also think they should switch to something better, but for the moment I see why they don't, as it is working for them as it is.
