Is there a Lemmy community for “someone should make this”? Similar to reddit’s r/SomebodyMakeThis.
And alternatively, this thread could serve as one: what are some software projects that I/others could take on? Ideally small enough in scope that I could make something partially usable in a weekend or two.
Previously I’ve just worked on whatever I found fun to program, but it would be nice to hear things that people actually want that don’t exist yet, and would be interested in trying it even when it is only partially finished. I’m not sure about others but I find my day job is often full of meetings or bureaucracy, and I don’t often get the satisfaction of seeing people happy with something that I built. (I wonder if this feeling is more common in other types of work)
I had this idea a few months ago, and found a thread discussing the same thing from several years ago. Seems like nothing came of it.
I currently use Syncthing to keep a lot of items synced across a few of my devices. It’s completely decentralized and fully encrypted. Instead of synching files, what if it could be used as an instant messenger? No central server to interrupt service. No single point of attack. No more requiring a name or phone number, just exchange a QR code to begin communicating.
I think this would excel at group messaging, especially if some members are out of service occasionally. Reconnect, and all messages get distributed.
There must be something out there that already works like this, but I don’t know of a serverless system.
Skype basically worked like this back in the day. It had it’s ups but for day-to-day users it was rather unintuitive so Microsoft moved to a server system when they took it over. I am pretty sure there are still p2p chat systems around though, I just don’t know any of them by name.
I agree and am surprised that this isn’t more in demand. I like matrix.org and use it as a regular messenger for people that I’ve convinced to use it. But it is dependent on people hosting their own instances, or using the official public one (for free).
They do have a “peer to peer” matrix experiment that I’ve heard about but it was in its early stages when I last looked at it: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p2p-matrix/