Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#81

Post by brazzledazzle » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:21 PM UTC

tabbott wrote: post #45

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…

It's worth mentioning that Zulip ( https://zulip.org/ ) is a new open source option that has basically all the features IRC/Slack does. So using open source tools for open source development doesn't have to mean dealing with IRC's limitations. (I'm one of the Zulip maintainers; happy to answer any questions about it).

I've been meaning to give Zulip a try. How many users can it handle?

Less importantly: What would you say its biggest missing feature is vs Slack? And conversely what does it bring to the table that Slack can't touch yet?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#82

Post by enraged_camel » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

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.

So you don't use GitHub or Bitbucket, then?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#83

Post by enraged_camel » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #66

ebiester wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm a developer. The problem is not that I'm "failing to rise up to this level of problem-solving". The problem is how much free time I have, and whether I can afford distractions from my main project to fiddle with IRC and get it to do what I want.

We use Slack because "it just works". You get invited, you join, and BAM! You're done. There is one uniform client for all platforms and a bazillion integrations already developed for you. And creating your own is usually a simple matter of sending a POST request to a channel's webhook using a unique token.

Essentially it comes down to this: IRC is a protocol that requires a fair amount of research and configuration to make it do exactly what you want it to do. Slack is a product that comes with the vast majority of features most teams need. That's why a ton of people are gravitating towards the latter.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#84

Post by ionforce » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:24 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #75

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 this is a really important point. What Slack solves -- speaking in the general case, not specifically for FOSS projects -- is that it's an essentially out-of-the-box solution. Not just for non-technical users, although that's very important, but for all users. Both the linked article and the various suggestions in comments give all sorts of IRC-based alternatives to what Slack does, but they're all things tha…

You're absolutely right. But it's sad that comments like this even need to be made. Like people constantly forget that usability is a thing and not everyone has infinite free time to burn on setting things up.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#85

Post by Drup » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

terravion wrote: post #38

Are there IRC clients that work well in poor connectivity situations? I.e. does IRC or any IRC client support sent, received, read confirmation the way that What'sApp or Google Hangouts reports this information?

With a properly configured bouncer (ZNS is rather easy to setup), it will work regardless of the client.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#86

Post by jmfayard » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #64

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…

Good luck pretending than "setting-up your own IRC server" is easier than not having to care about such a thing, and that most people really enjoy to have to "choose from a multitude of servers, services, clients, bots, client scripts, bouncers, and myriad of bots" instead of just going to https://slack.com/downloads

The article does not even discuss the fact that projects that opened a slack community with a big increase in their audience. Apparently audience is much less important than purity.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#87

Post by xanderstrike » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #66

ebiester wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that's substantially less useful than Slack's search utility. Believe me, I've spent my fair share of time grepping IRC logs and it certainly works up to a point. What you describe is a pretty lightweight, low-utility solution (are you really going to download six months/a year/10 years worth of logs and depend on your browser's search?).

Plus, keep in mind there are other people besides developers. There are product managers, UX engineers, designers, translators, and any other number of people who might not be familiar with grep and would otherwise not need to be. Assuming that only developers need to chat is pretty naive.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#88

Post by synthmeat » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

I find it surprising that everyone apparently thinks that it goes without saying that Slack's interface is superior to other choices.

It is full of visual noise. You end up in desparate need of splitting most types of information streams in separate channels because of it, and then before you know it, you're channel-hopping all day long.

For core functionality - chatting - I've found that most IRC clients I've used are superior to it. Hell, even Facebook's chat is superior.

It'd take fully redesigned fully native client idiomatic to every platform abounding with customization options to make me take a stroll through that garden. Not web client and especially not some Electron (is it?) desktop client that looks more like afterthought than carefully crafted experience.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#89

Post by jordz » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

Completely agree with this. We use Slack for our Business Communication and love it, we pay for it so we can see all our messages and it definitely has its place. (Office Managers, Project Managers, Directors, PR are all in it, super simple and easy for them)

For Open Source projects or just general communities IRC is the best medium suited to it. Yes IRC has its issues but maybe that's because no one has brought it forward with the kind of velocity other projects seem to have these days.

I don't boycott Slack teams I just find it difficult to manage more than 2 teams in the client so I just don't, I like channels in IRC. I can flip between them regardless of server or team and can see the entire history.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#90

Post by kuschku » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

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.

Or use Quassel (an open source project very similar to the proprietary IRC Cloud) and you can easily import the entire history of a channel into the backlog for a new user.

I’ve done exactly that.