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diff --git a/blog/md/discord-loves-open-source.md b/blog/md/discord-loves-open-source.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db82384 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/md/discord-loves-open-source.md @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +# Discord "loves Open Source", but isn't | 02nd February 2025 + +Someone asked me whether Discord is freely distributed software; indeed Discord mentions "open source" on their website; they have a page "Discord loves open source"[1] where open source projects which use Discord are listed, and Discord nudge users to join "servers", as if those servers were instances (they aren't). + +Discord isn't open source. It's proprietary (Wikipedia is a reasonable source to check the license of a software). + +Discord uses the word "server" but that does not mean instance. A "server", in Discord' jargon is just a group chat. +All the action takes place on Discord's servers. +All the users remain in Discord's walled-garden. + +One of the checks you can do, to understand whether a software is freely distributed is to check whether one can run an instance of that software. +That's the case with Mastodon, for example. +You can run your own Mastodon instance, or join the instance of someone else. + +Freely distributed alternatives to Discord are: Matrix along with the client Element which support audio, maybe Tox protocol for chatting and voice, Mumble for low-latency voice (only); some people mentioned Mattermost on the web, but based on the feedback I got from some people managing instances of Mattermost, Mattermost is making more and more features proprietary. +For chat only, there is also Gitter and IRC. + +[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250201134938if_/https://discord.com/open-source |