Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

drewdevault.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 499 posts

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#61

Post by BoxFour »

vonklaus wrote: post #33

It is reasonable to raise the point that building FOSS software while using a closed piece of software as a core tool bears consideration. However, I am 25 and largely missed the boat on irc. I decided to start using it ~1 year ago. It is hard to use, but we will look at that in a minute. Often, we assume people have as clear an idea of what we are talking about as we do. That is often not the case. Let's explore IRC…

Ehh, as someone your age (a couple years younger even), I have a completely different take on IRC.

It's incredibly intuitive because it's so similar to all the other chat clients we grew up with (presumably because they're based on IRC).

Sure, figuring out bouncers and build bots is a little tricky at first, but so what? That's the fun part. It's kinda fun digging into the IRC protocol and figuring out how it works.

And ok, if that's not fun for you, there are plenty of really "click and install" tools for you (e.g. ZNC is super easy to setup).

Not to sound like an elitist prick, but if you can't figure out how to setup an IRC bouncer, I'm not sure I really trust you contributing to the linux kernel, yaknow?

Reducing friction is great: But the kind of friction we should be trying to reduce is bureaucratic friction. Throwing out PRs and yelling at people because they forgot to cc some particular maintainer - that's the kind of friction that sucks. Having to setup an IRC bouncer? Idk, I think that's fine.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#63

Post by chris_wot »

hbosch wrote: post #52
chris_wot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things slack can do (at least according to this article) that IRC can't are do small it's negligible. If slack is web-based, then what is to stop someone from making a web-based IRC client with all the features and good UX design of slack?

And there is: http://shout-irc.com IMO Shout is a UI improvement over Slack for the sheer fact that it is 100% customizable.

You realise you just increased traffic on their demo by like 1000%? :-)

Pretty nice though.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#64

Post by ve55 »

emergentcypher wrote: post #26

Please for the love of god just don't use Slack. We have learned absolutely nothing. Let's all jump on the bandwagon of another closed-source, proprietary, walled-garden service and hand over all of our private intra-company communications to a private third-party in another country. GREAT IDEA.

This is one of the better reasons for opting for open-source alternatives to new technologies.

If you have a single person that is even slightly technical, it should be trivial to set up your own IRC server, and then you get complete control over all of your own information.

Even with that, you still can choose from a multitude of servers, services, clients, bots, client scripts, bouncers, and so on. Anything common you want to add on after that point has likely already been written for what your purposes (and is of course open-source), whether it's a git commit bot, a logging/relay bot, or even end-to-end encryption (even after TLS). It's even quick to write custom IRC bots for arbitrary purposes if you use a framework or copy some example code (even without that, it is only so bad).

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#65

Post by tw04 »

d0m wrote: post #10

> Problems with IRC that Slack solves Main thing that Slack solves as far as I'm concerned is a great and uniform client on every platform. Don't get me wrong, I love irc. This is where I started learning everything I know about computer. I tried many times to get various team on it and it always failed. I think it's mainly because the learning curve is too big for non-technical/busy people, and that there's no good…

I think it's that it never gained a groundswell in the US. In Europe, and I can think of sweden and norway in particular, there were all sorts of completely technically illiterate people on IRC. Their friends just showed them how to download the client and connect.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#66

Post by okasaki »

ebiester wrote: post #53
chris_wot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For buildbots, it's not that hard. See http://docs.buildbot.net/current/tutorial/index.html Instead of using slack, use IRC Cloud.

Does IRC Cloud allow new employees to get the entire history of the channel? I can't see how it would from looking at its page.

Why do people talk like this is some impossible feat for IRC?

1. Have a bot that's in the channel from the start

2. cd into the bot's log directory and type python -m SimpleHTTPServer

3. put the url into the channel topic

How do some developers fail to rise up to this level of problem solving? I am amazed.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#67

Post by mcphage »

chris_wot wrote: post #34
d0m wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is part of the problem. People don't want "a lot of web-based IRC clients", they want only one and it has to be amazing.

The things slack can do (at least according to this article) that IRC can't are do small it's negligible. If slack is web-based, then what is to stop someone from making a web-based IRC client with all the features and good UX design of slack?

> what is to stop someone from making a web-based IRC client with all the features and good UX design of slack?

Absolutely nothing. Nothing has stopped anyone from making a fully featured IRC client with good UX. Yet there still isn't one.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#68

Post by ebiester »

dsr_ wrote: post #16
parasubvert wrote: post #12

This seems to be similar to the argument of "don't use Github or Bitbucket, use your own hosted Gitlab". Some of the complaints are a bit petty (really, an extra browser tab per project is a burden?) IRC is better for occasional participants that wish to remain anonymous and/or use less screen real estate, but Slack is generally a better experience for regulars and way less hassle than hosting your own server/bots. Y…

This is more like "don't use BitKeeper, use git".

No, it's more like "don't use BitKeeper, use CVS."

My first experience with IRC was 1994, I believe. I get IRC. However, slack has been a better experience. The biggest advantage has been persistent history and search for any member of a slack team. A new employee should have access to a conversation from a year ago.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#69

Post by ash »

Some open source self-hosted alternatives to Slack:

* Rocket.Chat (https://rocket.chat/)

* Zulip (https://zulip.org/)

* Mattermost (http://www.mattermost.org/)

* Let's Chat (http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/)

Oh, and by the way, you could have your own Rocket.Chat instance running in Sandstorm in about 30 seconds: https://sandstorm.io/apps

Update. And I would love to see a modern federated chat protocol to take off. Something like http://matrix.org/.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#70

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Nyubis wrote: post #22
raverbashing wrote: post #20

- The Slack client is an improvement over IRC ones. I don't remember free IRC clients (GUI) for Mac OS or Windows (there's Pidgin, but still...) - File transfers and snippets are not so essential, but they make working simpler - You can connect to slack using IRC or XMPP https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201727913-Connec...

HexChat is a pretty great free client for Windows. It's basically XChat.

HexChat supports OSX, too.
Post reply on HN