Is there something good to replace it?
It doesn’t need a replacement. IRC is amazing the way it is, and Hexchat is a perfect example of “a finished product”.
I agree as far as the feature set is concerned, but software unfortunately doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
A vulnerability could be discovered that needs a fix.
The operating system could change in such a way that eventually leads to the software not functioning on later versions.
The encryption algorithms supported by the server could be updated, rendering the client unable to connect.
It might be a really long time before any of that happens, but without a maintainer, that could be the end.
That can be true for self-contained command line tools, but not for complex programs with actively development dependencies (especially anything dealing with networking or encryption). For example hexchat uses GTK2 which is likely to be removed from mainstream distro repos in the coming years because it has been obsolete for a long time. Also openssl which is known to change its API occasionally which means that anything that uses it needs to be updated to stay compatible.
This. Sometimes a software is just finished. IRC itself has not seen change in like… about all the time I remember.
@venia_sil @SomeBoyo @amaki @OsrsNeedsF2P
Is it different with XMPP?
Adoption relatively low but still in active development?
You can fork it and continue developing it if you want
edit: you downvoting losers probably don’t seed your torrents either
Aw, buddy. We’re sorry that other people aren’t doing enough free work to make you happy.
I hope so, but the protocol seems to be complex by several order of magnitude.
I’m not familiar with either protocol - what is it that makes IRC so simple and Matrix complicated?
It’s more akin to XMPP rather than IRC. From what I’ve seen, a Matrix server would be more resource-heavy than an XMPP one. Synapse one would probably not run on my weak machine at all, and Dendrite/Conduit are not feature-complete. And the primary reason I still haven’t been on Matrix is that I have very limited disk space on my VPS, and Matrix saves media from every chat its servers are on, and I still haven’t figured out how to opt out of that.
I like The Lounge
