FreeGameDev

Related to this discussion. No promise that it will be actually implemented, but something I would like to look at. Chose the 3 systems you would be most likely to use if available on FDG.

Links to the mentioned systems (no preference implied by the order):
Modern XMPP desktop and mobile clients: Conversations, Xabber, Dino, Gajim etc.
XMPP chat web-clients: Converse.js, JSXC
XMPP through Movim
Matrix & Riot.im
(Note that XMPP & Matrix are federated, so you could use your own server/account to connect)
Modern IRC web clients: The Lounge, Convos, Kiwi IRC-Next
Mattermost
RocketChat
Zulip
Mumble voice chat

Add additional comments or suggestions below.

Edit: We could add some bridges between these systems and other external services with Spectrum2, Biboumi, Bitlbee etc.

Interesting could also be some chat-bots like Hubot, Errbot or maybe NodeRed conversation chat bot.

Edit2: Obviously only self-hosted open-source software are options here

Discord.

-has people.
-the protocol doesn't cater to creeps (unlike many of the choices here)
-works on mobile devices
-optional 2FA and account linking

Discord isn't an option as it is closed-source and you can't self-host it.
Edit: Discord through the Bitlbee bridge would be an option though, but that's more of an service for people who would like to slowly get rig of Discord

Any particular reason you emphasise 2FA? Sure it can be implemented, but as a user I find it an unecessary hassle for non-banking sites.

leilei {l Wrote}:the protocol doesn't cater to creeps (unlike many of the choices here)

Why is that? I heard pedophiles that exchange stuff and "immature people" (annoying CS kids, as some call them) are quite a problem. According to some persons on the internet the problem is that some of the mods let that fly, so mentioned groups might try it on your channel/room (or whatever it is called on Discord) as well.

Also: Electron => No.

Heh... so much hate for Electron Yeah it's often slow, but often it is that or no dedicated app at all... so I don't really see the problem with it.

Strange that there are no Matrix users here. I thought it was all the craze with open-source supporter right now. Personally I don't see the big advantage over XMPP/IRC, and the current Synapse server is slow and inefficient in memory use comparatively, but the Riot.im web-client is really nice.

Julius {l Wrote}:Heh... so much hate for Electron Yeah it's often slow, but often it is that or no dedicated app at all.

Dedicated to what? You mean opposed to not using your own web browser? Which might be a slow piece of shit - as are all web browsers thanks to web standards - but at least it is your chosen piece of shit and gets updated against security flaws in time. Whereas I can't say the same for Electron based applications, because they have to go through the chain of Chromium team -> Github/Electron team -> Developer X.
That might not be as relevant when we are talking about a text editor - not always connected to the internet, at least in theory - that is backed by a company that drowns those and other problems in money like VSCode. Call me paranoid, but I sure wouldn't want to take my chances with chat applications - something that always faces the internet - backed by companies that bet their whole existence on being bought by greater (by size only) companies.
So, tl;dr: Why would you use Electron applications if they only offer the combined drawbacks of native applications and stuff that runs in the browser?

Seems like IRC through a nice web interface is pretty well liked here.

And The Lounge just got a very nice update: https://github.com/thelounge/lounge/blo ... ANGELOG.md

Basically the question would be: run The Lounge as a pure client connecting to an existing IRC network (such as irc.freenode.net with our #Freegamer channel) or would our own IRC server (e.g. irc.freegamedev.net ) be preferred? It wouldn't be much of an issue to set up an InspIRCd server also, but if it isn't used at all...

Just use FreeNode. No need to split an already thin userbase (IRC users).

Test instance of The Lounge: https://irc.freegamedev.net Edit: currently down... disabled due to various issues. Sorry.
For now user-accounts are not available and it is locked to freenode. I will also evaluate the server resource use of it in the coming days, but I doubt that will be a concern (in idle mode it uses 40mb RAM and 0.1% CPU).

With user-accounts it is actually much nicer (I have one ) as it allows you to use IRC simultaneous from multiple devices (The Lounge works really well on mobile) and automatically keeps you online in the channel (and logs the messages for you). But right now we need to find a good solution for user registration and this will probably need some time.

Next up is probably a XMPP server and maybe a linked Movim instance. Having issues with my other Movim instance lately and there is no convenient Docker image. Ejabbered is also not so easy to set up on Docker (with SSL).

Seems like the next version (2.3) of Mastodon will have much better user account sharing (LDAP, SAML etc.)... which makes it more interesting as that would allow quite nice integration with The Lounge IRC and most forum software (and Mumbe etc.). I guess I should at least give it a try...

Have you considered just a simple phpBB chat module? Like this https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2286221 Hardly they're feature-rich and web-only, but quiet usable.

Besides that these kind of chats tend to scale very badly, I personally see a pure chat as a net negative for a community. Yes the entry barrier is a bit lower than a forum, but discussed topics get quickly lost, or are in private 1:1 chats etc. This is also why I am not a big fan of the current IRC chat, but with the above new client and possible links to XMPP it is probably better. But in general I would rather have no chat than a basic chat only.
But there are several ways a chat like system can be a net positive, mainly by linking communities together (federation) or offering additional services that a forum etc can't (microblogging, chat-bots etc.). And of course real-time communication and notification (on multiple devices) does have some benefits on its own.

Deleted.

Julius {l Wrote}:Seems like the next version (2.3) of Mastodon will have much better user account sharing (LDAP, SAML etc.)... which makes it more interesting as that would allow quite nice integration with The Lounge IRC and most forum software (and Mumbe etc.). I guess I should at least give it a try...

Still having issues with Nginx (included in the Mastodon Docker image) behind the Traefik proxy
But I also came across this: https://pleroma.social/
Claims to be fully Mastodon compatible and lightweight enough to run on a RaspberryPI... I guess Elexir/Erlang is more suitable for such an application than Ruby after all... I am also experimenting with Hubzilla for another project, but that also seems to be able to interact with Mastodon to some extend.

Edit see also: https://medium.com/we-distribute/activi ... 635b7d6fde

The new KiwiIRC webclient is actually also quite nice:

https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/

However it is a thin client unlike the two linked above which also do offline logging and other interesting functions (unless linked with a ZNC bouncer). Edit: seems like it needs to tunnel everything through a websocket compatible IRC server though

The Lounge is still running fine, but the LDAP requirement to have user accounts (or manually adding users via the terminal ) is really making me rethink it's use, as I don't want to go through all the trouble to administrating and linking up all user accounts through LDAP.

I guess an IRC bridge to Matrix or XMPP would be the better way to log the channel and have it available at all times?

Unless you want to drive away your security-conscious members, don't shoehorn in chat scripts into the forum. If anything, it should be an explicit opt-in only.

Could you explain a bit better what you mean?

Are you concerned that your password leaks through a (insecure) chat services? Or that using an 3rd party chat service like Discord (out of the question anyways) would track you and leak private information / meta-data? Or are you concerned a chat service would pop up and disturb you with unwanted contact request? Or is it something different all together?

Uhh, shiny: I just read that the Pleroma developers are working on making the build in chat a fully IRC compatible but federated chat system. That, the low system requirement (Erlang for the win) and that you can use any Mastodon compatible client with it for microblogging (it even has the fancy webclient build in) makes it a really interesting choice!

Quite interesting is also this:

https://www.bitlbee.org/

It is a bridge that allows having various IM protocolls inside your IRC client. The list is quite impressive:

https://wiki.bitlbee.org/

It would even allow connecting to Steam and Discord chats and thus allow people to slowly phase away from these closed source services at least for their chat needs. Surprisingly Twitter and Mastodon are also supported... so you can tweet/toot away from IRC with it

I have some test systems running now. Please don't brake them as they are not extensively tested yet.

First of all a bitlbee server that you can reach with an IRC client on bitlbee.irc.freegamedev.net port 6697 (SSL only). Edit: might be switched to bitlebee.app.freegamedev.net soon; or we will offer an simpler IRC-XMPP bridge.
You can create an account and test the connections to other IM networks, but I still need to install the Discord and Mastodon plugins. I am probably not going to enable the libpurple plugins, so if you need that please host your own
I also have not looked yet extensively into password security, but from a quick glance at the user.xml they seem to be only stored in a hashed version.

There is also now a Biboumi XMPP to IRC bridge ( https://biboumi.louiz.org/ ). If you want to join our #FreeGamer channel on Freenode via XMPP you can do so by joining a groupchat/MUC in your XMPP client with the following JID: #freegamer%irc.freenode.net@irc.xmpp.freegamedev.net (Edit: should work again as of March 2019)
Joint connections from multiple devices seems to work great, and persistence and channel archiving seems to work as well.

You can actually also connect via Biboumi to Bitlbee, but I am really not yet sure what the security implications of that might be. For now I don't recommend this. The opposite i.e. to use bitlbee to connect to a Jabber MUC should be fine as well, and while a bit silly, it should work as a IRC bouncer if used on the Biboumi MUC

Has anyone other than me tested the above bridges? It's too bad Freenode IRC is almost unusable with the recent spam-bot wave

I haven't, since I've never used the above chat systems anyway. There are ways to combat the IRC spam, but that requires an active operator. But to be honest, the channel itself was hardly active to begin with.

I'm taking a break from IRC since I keep getting into flamewars

More of a note to self of what might make sense to implement, but maybe also interesting for others:
https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge
(a interconnected bot system to repost messages on various chat services)
This might be a simpler replacement for Bitbee (which works great, but not so intuitive to configure as a user).

Any strong opinion on keeping Bitlbee running? I currently do not see much use for it myself and will probably replace it with Matterbridge for basic bridging when I find the time. It's a really nice project though, I just don't use IRC much, especially now that the XMPP to IRC bridge works so well.

Edit: if it works I will probably opt for a simpler IRC only bridge: https://github.com/moparisthebest/xmpp-ircd