The Kiwi IRC web client has now been sponsored for faster updates and full time development reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- prawnsalad · 2017-07-13 16:32 For all the networks using Kiwi IRC as their web client - expect awesome things heading your way, and still ad-free <3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CannedDeath · 2017-07-13 16:33 Is it just me or is PIA trying to buy out all of IRC? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Not_Just_You · 2017-07-13 16:34 >Is it just me Probably not ---------------------------------------------------------------------- prawnsalad · 2017-07-13 16:36 Just to be clear - they have not bought out Kiwi IRC. They have sponsored development of kiwiirc.com and the open source project. Everything is owned and run by the same people as always. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LocutusOfBorges · 2017-07-13 18:11 Bit late. Discord is devouring IRC's userbase whole at the moment. IRCv3's taking so long to turn into anything substantive that it's thrown away it's only window to salvage the platform. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- prawnsalad · 2017-07-13 18:33 Yup, IRCv3 stuff has been slow. A single company with a full team of hired devs and managers vs volunteer people spread over the world does that. I am looking to spend some time on IRCv3 specs myself and getting them tested+implemented faster though to play catchup with the propriety chat sites. We are in the great position that communities using Kiwi/IRC are not tied into a single for-profit company though. You can literally use one of many services or run them yourselves if needed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saber_UK · 2017-07-13 21:20 > IRCv3's taking so long to turn into anything substantive that it's thrown away it's only window to salvage the platform. Its almost as if we were a team of mostly volunteers who have other priorities like not starving to death. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LocutusOfBorges · 2017-07-13 21:50 It's not intended as an attack on the IRCv3 team- just an observation that the effort is a little too late to matter as much as it might have done in the past. The way is now almost entirely open for IRC to be supplanted by more (at least to newcomers) user-friendly services in every single respect. Discord alone has hollowed out practically every single one of the dozens of IRC communities I'm a member of over the past two years. Public community channels have moved to Discord, and absolutely *thrived* post-transition in a way they never had the chance to in the IRC days. Team organisation channels have switched to Slack, and find it to be a more productive service in just about every way- largely thanks to the reduction in hassle involved. The window where the trickle of users leaving IRC behind could have been prevented from turning into a flood if the protocol could have modernised, at latest, maybe two years ago. Those users aren't coming back. I mean, I wish things were different. But I'm not optimistic about the protocol's future anymore. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- buovjaga · 2017-07-14 11:58 I actually messaged christel of Freenode/PIA a couple of months ago to suggest sponsoring and a change of webchat.freenode.net to KiwiIRC (next client when it's stable) :) Never got a reply and maybe this is a coincidence, but at least my wish upon a star came true! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- buovjaga · 2017-07-14 19:00 They have a pretty diverse sponsoring portfolio, including Linux Mint: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/companies-we-sponsor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Transference90 · 2017-08-04 02:08 Discord is *new, sleek, and sexy.* It does chat and voice, integrates with different apps like steam, and is very useful as it's centralized nature allows you to be able to join a access that channel from anywhere else, natively, even on a public computer. However, IRC is an established, dedicated, internet protocol. I don't think IRC has to worry about going anywhere. It may lose attention but it's not like it's going to close down if not enough people use it. The only way Discord/Telegram/whatever is going to 'destroy' IRC is if they themselves become IPs. But even then, people will still use what they like. SMS is free to use for most people(comes with the phone bill), but people still use other messaging services that use data(usually metered). Dedicated apps where going to take over the web, but we are still here on HTTP/S. People even still find uses for FTP, Gopher, even Telnet. I really don't think IRC is going to go down just because the *NEW & SEXY* is more popular than they are. Or because they aren't ready to release a protocol revision within a certain timeframe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LocutusOfBorges · 2017-08-04 02:53 Consider how many people still use Gopher. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Transference90 · 2017-08-04 03:11 My point is that it's still around and still has (somewhat) active users and developers even though a ridiculously large amount of people don't even know it exist. I could be wrong, but I don't view protocols as popularity contests; if a protocol is good and well made, people will use it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LocutusOfBorges · 2017-08-04 03:15 Ask yourself how many people still use Jabber/XMPP. I mean, that's the thing- if the userbase goes, people have less incentive to stay on it. It's why just about every IRC community I used to frequent that was *thriving* a year ago has declined to the point of almost nonexistence now- once the people without strong attachments go, the people clinging to the protocol for its own reasons tend to follow out of necessity. IRCv3 could become the greatest protocol in the world, for all it matters- nobody would use it if everyone else had already deserted it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Transference90 · 2017-08-04 04:20 Ha, forgot about IM. Though I know people use that too, you have a good point. Once a piece of technology is abandoned, few ever return to it no matter what it could have been... Oh well, free market and all that. I guess I'm just skewed by my fascination with all internet protocols that I tend to forget that most people don't go out of their way to find out what the internet used to look like.