Subj : Re: Vibes
To   : boraxman
From : tenser
Date : Wed Jan 26 2022 03:32:25

On 25 Jan 2022 at 11:00p, boraxman pondered and said...
 
 bo> The disadvantages are obvious and perhaps outweight the advantages, but
 bo> for me, the advantages are

This is an interesting perspective; thank you for sharing.  I
have a slight quibble I hope you'll consider.

 bo> 1) Easy to deploy on low end hardware.  My experience is with Mystic,
 bo> which was easy to set up.  Synchronet was harder, but Matrix isn't easy
 bo> either.

True, though I would perhaps separate the ability to run well on
low-end hardware from how easy something is to set up and configure.
Mystic may well run on something as anemic as a Raspberry Pi 1, but
you've already got Linux on that machine and it has essentially all
of the same properties you listed.  Similarly, a Matrix server may
run on low-end hardware acceptably well, even if it is admittedly
harder to configure. Something like Discourse seems is really very
nice, but requires rather a lot of work and may require a beefier
host system.

 bo> 2) Clients are simple, in the sense that they don't need to be updated to
 bo> accommodate server side changes.  The user is using a thin client.  The
 bo> communication protocol is straightforward telnet or SSH.  Low barrier to
 bo> creating alternative clients.

Funny, I actually see this as being a rather high barrier.  Web
browsers are ubiquitous; SSH clients less so, and telnet is fading
into ever-greater obscurity.

 bo> 4) No third party at all.  It is a direct connection from the remote
 bo> machine to yours.  It is totally in your control.  This isn't unique,
 bo> but an advantage.  No one needs to even know it exists.

This I somewhat disagree with: you have your ISP connection, rely
on third-party DNS servers, etc.  This was true in the dialup days
as well, except then the third party was the telephone utility.

Again, thanks for the interesting perspective.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/11/06 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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