discuss.markdown: rant on toasters, protocols, bridges, relays, transports and everything

pages/discuss.markdown

@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ excerpt: "Introduction to my public instant messaging chats"
 navigation: true
 ---
 
+# Discuss
+
 I have a [PUBLICLY LOGGED](https://view.matrix.org/room/!xFKkXCpcnEwgBEQBFt:matrix.org/) instant messaging chatroom for comments to my
 blog and other things I do. They are connected together by [Matterbridge](https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge/#matterbridge).
 
@@ -47,3 +49,57 @@ I do hope to be able to grow this list in the future.
 [Telegram]:https://telegram.org/
 [Twitch]:https://twitch.tv/
 [XMPP]:https://xmpp.org/
+
+* * * * *
+
+## A couple of words on protocols
+
+* IRC was invented in 1988 and regardless of developing integrated message
+  storage since then, it's still trivial to setup and runs well on a toaster. My personal
+  IRC history begins in 2010 as user and since then I have also opered
+  mostly on Charybdis+Atheme and nowadays on a couple of Ergos.
+* XMPP runs on a bit more powerful toaster and the servers talk to each other
+  without prior approval, it was originally introduced in 1999. I don't have
+  a record on when I begun using it as all multi-protocol chat apps that were
+  common even before 2010 supported it. I haven't had a need or desire to selfhost.
+* Telegram was introduced in 2013 and is a popular instant messenger with
+  many open source clients (not server) also on minority platforms (by third
+  parties). It's favoured by many for stickers and ease-to-use, while that
+  comes with concern on security and privacy.
+* Matrix was introduced in 2014 and I started using it in 2016. Many of the
+  client and server implementations are heavy, especially on server side requiring what to outside looks
+  like a constant maintenance to deal with the implementation performance issues,
+  I am not interested in even trying until the situation significantly improves.
+
+## And on transports, relays and bridges
+
+* One of the marketing points of XMPP was to connect to other protocols by
+  means of transports. They plug into a XMPP server and can be provided either
+  by yours or be open for other XMPP servers.
+* The word relay is often used on bots which copy messages from one protocol/network
+  and paste (or more simply said relay) it to another. They aren't transparent and thus the
+  messages from them appear to be coming from bots beginning with the message
+  sender instead of being completely transparent. This is what is commonly
+  used on IRC to connect to other IRC networks or protocols.
+  * Matterbridge regardless of the name acts like a relay. Like IRC and XMPP,
+    it also runs on a toaster requiring only [the binary](https://github.com/42wim/matterbridge/releases)
+    and a [config file](https://gitea.blesmrt.net/mikaela/gist/src/branch/master/irc/matterbridge/matterbridge-example.toml)
+    being trivial to setup anywhere quickly or move around.
+  * [Recent IRC development allows (RELAYMSG)](https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/417)
+    allows relays to be transparent making messages appear from users outside
+    of the channel that don't actually exist. This is similar to Discord webhooks
+    (that Matterbridge also supports) and Matrix Discord bridge.
+  * Common complaint from Matrix users is that they look ugly, but as shown
+    by IRC and Discord, that doesn't have to be the case
+    [and I hope Matrix will fix their issue allowing low-budget "toasterbridges"](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/3222).
+* Bridges are popularised by Matrix and are almost XMPP transports. However
+  while XMPP transports connect to the other protocol, bridges attempt to
+  copy everything on both sides so Matrix users see each other directly instead
+  of through the transport on the other side and on the other side of open protocols
+  Matrix users can be interacted with as if they were native to it.
+  * Unlike XMPP, the bridges also tend to be heavy and require a full homeserver
+    setup. The IRC bridge also generally requires blessing from the IRC network
+    and while some public bridges exist, they move the control away from you
+    hijacking the room to their rules and often have performance trouble
+    compared to "local toaster matterbridge".
+