llvm dev - Nov 2019 - RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's discussions

David,

I'm glad you mentioned Discord's T&Cs. I'm not generally
concerned about these kinds of things, but Discord's seems particularly
aggressive. Particularly the phrase "perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable,
royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license" is... a lot. Since LLVM
is a permissively licensed project I assume many of our contributors care about
licensing, and that might be a shared concern.

Since people have mentioned Slack on this thread, have you by chance looked at
Slack's ToS? The similar wording from Slack's ToS is, "worldwide,
non-exclusive, limited term license", which seems a lot less grabby. Would
you be less resistant to Slack?

-Chris
> On Nov 18, 2019, at 1:48 AM, David Chisnall via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Chandler,
> 
> One of the things that came up in our discussion at the WiCT workshop as a
barrier for new members of the community was the fact that key decisions are
often made at round tables at developer meetings without involvement of the
wider community, particularly the large fraction that is not able to travel to
the West Coast.  More broadly, the opacity of the LLVM Project decision making
was raised as something that is problematic when attempting to build a wider and
more diverse community.
> 
> I therefore find it slightly ironic that this is being announced after a
10-person discussion at an ancillary workshop that was attached to the main
DevMeeting.  This seems like a trend in the wrong direction.
> 
> While I am in general in favour of creating new channels to extend the
reach of the community, I don't believe that something like this that
requires existing community members to participate to be useful should be
launched without a wider discussion.  This paragraph in your announcement stood
out:
> 
> > We talked to a bunch of people and looked at the options out there and
> > the most promising ones were Discord for chatting and Discourse for
> > longer-form discussions.
> 
> Who are these 'bunch of people'?  Why were they selected to make
this decision (and by whom)?
> 
> Note that I don't object to the creation of a Discord server (though
the 'YOUR CONTENT' section of the T&Cs contains clauses that I'm
unwilling to agree to and so I won't be participating), only to the process
through which it was set up.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> On 18/11/2019 07:48, Chandler Carruth via llvm-dev wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>> *Short version:
>> *I've set up an LLVM Discord server for real time chat (similar to
IRC) and an LLVM Discourse server for forums (similar to email lists):
>> https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
>> https://llvm.discourse.group/
>> Please join and use these new services. They are only partially set up
and still very new, so don't hesitate to improve them and/or reach out to
this thread with any issues you see or things you want to fix. Also, both
services have dedicated feedback channels.
>> Do feel free to use Discourse for technical discussions, although try
not to create duplicate discussions (any more than you would between the lists
and Bugzilla) and make sure the people you're having the discussion with are
fine using Discourse instead of the email list. In case Discourse doesn't
work out, we'll collect and archive everything so it isn't lost.
>> *Longer version & more details:
>> *During this year's Women in Compilers and Tools meeting, folks
expressed very clearly that our communication systems cause a non-trivial amount
of friction for new people trying to find out about, learn, or contribute to
LLVM. Both IRC for chatting and mailing lists for longer-form discussions are
unfamiliar, difficult, and often intimidating for newcomers. While I have long
been a fan and resistant to change in these areas, the feedback from folks at
WiCT was compelling and important for us as a community to address. Even if it
means I have to let go of my precious IRC. ;]
>> We talked to a bunch of people and looked at the options out there and
the most promising ones were Discord for chatting and Discourse for longer-form
discussions. Meike and I have set up both an initial Discord and Discourse
server. You can find them here:
>> https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
>> https://llvm.discourse.group/
>> There is still a lot of work to be done. Notably, it'd be great for
folks to clean up and improve the summaries for each of the groups in Discourse,
and I'll be asking various people to help moderate on both Discourse and
Discord. If you'd like to help out with a specific set of improvements to
these, don't hesitate to reach out to me or Meike and we can get you set up.
Some specific things we're already working on:
>>  * Getting Discord verified with a nice URL.
>>  * Archives of mailing lists on Discourse so you can search in one
>>    place, etc.
>>      o See the plan here:
>>       
https://llvm.discourse.group/t/mirroring-and-archiving-llvm-mailing-lists-on-discourse/61
<https://llvm.discourse.group/t/mirroring-and-archiving-llvm-mailing-lists-on-discourse/61>
>>  * Moving Discourse to forums.llvm.org <http://forums.llvm.org/>
<http://forums.llvm.org <http://forums.llvm.org/>>.
>>  * Documenting the best way to move to Discourse while preserving a
>>    similarly email-focused workflow.
>> We're just adding these for now, but I'd like people to
seriously try using them. While IRC has served us fairly well, I think it is one
of the bigger barriers to entry. Our email lists are more effective, but also
have had serious infrastructure challenges over the years: a constant flow of
spam, bouncing for several major email providers, etc. Discourse has very
powerful email-based workflows available and I think we should seriously
consider moving to Discourse long-term instead of the email lists.
>> I also want to say thanks to all the folks at the WiCT workshop for
giving me and others feedback. I was pretty set in my ways around these kind of
things, but hearing the kinds of challenges this has posed to people less
established in the community was a real eye opener. It takes a lot to speak up
like this, and I really appreciate it. I hope this also helps start to address
these long-standing issues. Also a huge thanks to Tanya for organizing the WICT
workshop and Meike for helping drive this message home to me and doing a bunch
of the work getting these things set up. I wouldn't have been able to do it
without her help, especially around Discord bots.
>> -Chandler
>> _______________________________________________
>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
<https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev>
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Hi Chandler and Meike.

Great that you look into lower barriers for new (and existing) members, thanks!
To add what Chris brought up, besides the licensing of what we say on the
platform, there is another aspect of T&C that should be considered.
Discord's T&C allows only non-commercial use, unless they've given a
written approval. I'm curious if that is going to hinder the adoption of
Discord for people that are employed by for-profit organizations. I'm not a
lawyer, so I've no clue how much of a problem this is in reality.

Discourse seems more friendly towards user of for-profit organizations and
it's T&C are less aggressive than Discord. It also allows people to keep
using email if they prefer. Sounds less contentious. I've not looked in
detail, but I'll probably happy to use that instead of mailing lists.


Christof

From: llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> On Behalf Of Chris
Bieneman via llvm-dev
Sent: 19 November 2019 02:01
To: David Chisnall <David.Chisnall at cl.cam.ac.uk>
Cc: llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] RFC: Moving toward Discord and Discourse for LLVM's
discussions

David,

I'm glad you mentioned Discord's T&Cs. I'm not generally
concerned about these kinds of things, but Discord's seems particularly
aggressive. Particularly the phrase "perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable,
royalty-free, sublicensable, and worldwide license" is... a lot. Since LLVM
is a permissively licensed project I assume many of our contributors care about
licensing, and that might be a shared concern.

Since people have mentioned Slack on this thread, have you by chance looked at
Slack's ToS? The similar wording from Slack's ToS is, "worldwide,
non-exclusive, limited term license", which seems a lot less grabby. Would
you be less resistant to Slack?

-Chris


On Nov 18, 2019, at 1:48 AM, David Chisnall via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:

Hi Chandler,

One of the things that came up in our discussion at the WiCT workshop as a
barrier for new members of the community was the fact that key decisions are
often made at round tables at developer meetings without involvement of the
wider community, particularly the large fraction that is not able to travel to
the West Coast.  More broadly, the opacity of the LLVM Project decision making
was raised as something that is problematic when attempting to build a wider and
more diverse community.

I therefore find it slightly ironic that this is being announced after a
10-person discussion at an ancillary workshop that was attached to the main
DevMeeting.  This seems like a trend in the wrong direction.

While I am in general in favour of creating new channels to extend the reach of
the community, I don't believe that something like this that requires
existing community members to participate to be useful should be launched
without a wider discussion.  This paragraph in your announcement stood out:
> We talked to a bunch of people and looked at the options out there and
> the most promising ones were Discord for chatting and Discourse for
> longer-form discussions.
Who are these 'bunch of people'?  Why were they selected to make this
decision (and by whom)?

Note that I don't object to the creation of a Discord server (though the
'YOUR CONTENT' section of the T&Cs contains clauses that I'm
unwilling to agree to and so I won't be participating), only to the process
through which it was set up.

David


On 18/11/2019 07:48, Chandler Carruth via llvm-dev wrote:

Hello everyone,
*Short version:
*I've set up an LLVM Discord server for real time chat (similar to IRC) and
an LLVM Discourse server for forums (similar to email lists):
https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
https://llvm.discourse.group/
Please join and use these new services. They are only partially set up and still
very new, so don't hesitate to improve them and/or reach out to this thread
with any issues you see or things you want to fix. Also, both services have
dedicated feedback channels.
Do feel free to use Discourse for technical discussions, although try not to
create duplicate discussions (any more than you would between the lists and
Bugzilla) and make sure the people you're having the discussion with are
fine using Discourse instead of the email list. In case Discourse doesn't
work out, we'll collect and archive everything so it isn't lost.
*Longer version & more details:
*During this year's Women in Compilers and Tools meeting, folks expressed
very clearly that our communication systems cause a non-trivial amount of
friction for new people trying to find out about, learn, or contribute to LLVM.
Both IRC for chatting and mailing lists for longer-form discussions are
unfamiliar, difficult, and often intimidating for newcomers. While I have long
been a fan and resistant to change in these areas, the feedback from folks at
WiCT was compelling and important for us as a community to address. Even if it
means I have to let go of my precious IRC. ;]
We talked to a bunch of people and looked at the options out there and the most
promising ones were Discord for chatting and Discourse for longer-form
discussions. Meike and I have set up both an initial Discord and Discourse
server. You can find them here:
https://discord.gg/xS7Z362
https://llvm.discourse.group/
There is still a lot of work to be done. Notably, it'd be great for folks to
clean up and improve the summaries for each of the groups in Discourse, and
I'll be asking various people to help moderate on both Discourse and
Discord. If you'd like to help out with a specific set of improvements to
these, don't hesitate to reach out to me or Meike and we can get you set up.
Some specific things we're already working on:
 * Getting Discord verified with a nice URL.
 * Archives of mailing lists on Discourse so you can search in one
   place, etc.
     o See the plan here:
      
https://llvm.discourse.group/t/mirroring-and-archiving-llvm-mailing-lists-on-discourse/61
 * Moving Discourse to forums.llvm.org<http://forums.llvm.org/>
<http://forums.llvm.org<http://forums.llvm.org/>>.
 * Documenting the best way to move to Discourse while preserving a
   similarly email-focused workflow.
We're just adding these for now, but I'd like people to seriously try
using them. While IRC has served us fairly well, I think it is one of the bigger
barriers to entry. Our email lists are more effective, but also have had serious
infrastructure challenges over the years: a constant flow of spam, bouncing for
several major email providers, etc. Discourse has very powerful email-based
workflows available and I think we should seriously consider moving to Discourse
long-term instead of the email lists.
I also want to say thanks to all the folks at the WiCT workshop for giving me
and others feedback. I was pretty set in my ways around these kind of things,
but hearing the kinds of challenges this has posed to people less established in
the community was a real eye opener. It takes a lot to speak up like this, and I
really appreciate it. I hope this also helps start to address these
long-standing issues. Also a huge thanks to Tanya for organizing the WICT
workshop and Meike for helping drive this message home to me and doing a bunch
of the work getting these things set up. I wouldn't have been able to do it
without her help, especially around Discord bots.
-Chandler
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev

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Christof Douma via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> writes:
> To add what Chris brought up, besides the licensing of what we say on
> the platform, there is another aspect of T&C that should be
> considered. Discord's T&C allows only non-commercial use, unless
> they've given a written approval. I'm curious if that is going to
> hinder the adoption of Discord for people that are employed by
> for-profit organizations. I'm not a lawyer, so I've no clue how
much
> of a problem this is in reality.
Both the non-commercial use restrictions and Discord's T&C would be
non-starters for us.  Matrix/Riot seems like a promising solution.

I am fully in favor of moving to Discourse as long as we have an e-mail
bridge, which in my understanding is easy to do.  Just getting
conversations broken out into sub-topics alone would be a huge increase
in usability.  It would be great if we could do the same for the commits
lists.  Creating multiple Mailman lists for each subtopic is
sub-optimal.  A central go-to place for all topics is essential.

                     -David