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Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

drewdevault.com

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Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#141

Post by Drdrdrq »

ash wrote: post #69

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…

Let's chat: no mobile, no push notifications. Very fancy and not so useful UI (imho).

Don't know others yet, thanks for the list.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#142

Post by andreyf »

BoxFour wrote: post #61
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.…

I don't think you sound like an elitist prick, but rather the kind of person that enjoys tinkering with technology for fun. Perhaps unfortunately, this view is no longer representative of most people working in technology, and definitely not all of the users of Slack.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#143

Post by daenney »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #139

One thing even private organizations should think about is the potential for chats on Slack to embarrass the heck out of them. Slack doesn't let an organization sunset and delete private chats/DMs after a certain amount of time. When employees think they aren't overheard they start to get very frank with each other (which is good, I think frank and direct communication is important). But sometimes they say things tha…

Looking at this page it seems entirely possible to configure a DM retention policy: https://slack.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203457187-Settin...

It seems to by default use the team retention settings.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#144

Post by tabbott »

cpitman wrote: post #107
brazzledazzle wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

IMO, push notifications for mobile applications is a big hole. It's not an easy problem to solve, but as of right now I believe you have to release your own flavor of the mobile applications for this to work.

Yeah, the mobile apps support that on zulip.com but work needs to be done to make that work with running your own Zulip server...

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#145

Post by tabbott »

thaeli wrote: post #122
tabbott wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm excited about Zulip as a Slack-style tool, especially for teams. (Separate from the discussion of whether FOSS project collaboration should be Slackish or IRCish.) Are there any plans to support multiple teams / multiple servers from the native client? This is a particularly acute pain point on mobile; I'm reluctant to promote any tool that requires me to be logged in to only one project's instance of the tool at…

That isn't currently supported since it wasn't super important before Zulip was open sourced a month ago, but I definitely consider it one of the major problems that need work for both the desktop and mobile apps.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#146

Post by peterjmag »

vjeux wrote: post #123
peterjmag wrote: post #115

It's not as simple as "just use IRC". Even in cases where an IRC channel is both available and relatively well-promoted, some communities still seek out other tools. The first example that comes to mind is Reactiflux, a rather large React.js community that recently moved from Slack to Discord[1][2], another closed source app that will probably stay that way[3]. To me, the fact that a community of tech-savvy developer…

For context, we've always promoted IRC for real time communication on React. I encouraged people to setup other mediums for communication and many people attempted but only one took off: Reactiflux on Slack. The official way is still IRC on the website but most people are using Reactiflux which is pretty incredible. Now, we got the bad news a month ago that we've been kicked off of Slack :( So, I started looking at a…

Hi Christopher! :) Thanks for expanding. To clarify, I didn't mean to imply that moving to another closed source solution was the wrong decision. In fact, Discord seems like a great tool for the job. I just wanted to use the migration as an example of how/why some groups don't switch "back" to IRC or other open source solutions, because their needs are better met by something proprietary.

I'm a big proponent of open source, but I'm also all for using the right tools, whether that means open, closed, or some combination of the two.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#147

Post by ebiester »

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.

Can it be done? Sure.

Should I take the time to create a solution that not only works for me, but is a pleasant user experience for my entire organization? That is a piece of work that is bigger than "python -m SimpleHTTPServer".

Or, I can trade money for a team that is actively solving the problem already.

Or, people who care could get a group together to tackle the inadequacies of IRC for the business use case as mattermost is trying. But let's not pretend that IRC fits the Slack use case well.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#148

Post by tabbott »

ekimekim wrote: post #109
brazzledazzle wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'll field the latter. I've used both Zulip and Slack in small team (5-20 people) settings and I much prefer Zulip. In particular I like how the zulip UI is single-stream by default. Messages from different channels are interleaved, so you can read all new messages at a glance, but still well separated by visual elements including color - I don't find it confusing. And I can focus down to any particular channel , or…

FWIW Zulip does have a beta-quality IRC gateway (bots/irc-mirror.py); anyone interested in working on improving that should check out this issue: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/issues/249

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#149

Post by astazangasta »

KirinDave wrote: post #130

If IRC were good enough to handle the needs of small software company communication, people would use IRC . Sitting here pretending everyone just doesn't know about a 20+ year old technology is comical. The "IRC Features" section bugs me, too. Unless you run a private IRC server IRC has a long, tortured history of design-based security difficulties. Gone are the days of netsplits permanently owning channels, but the…

>Unless you run a private IRC server IRC has a long, tortured history of design-based security difficulties.

So run a private IRC server? This is a weird caveat, like complaining that angelfire is an insufficient web platform and you have to run your own http server to do well. There are a billion IRC clients, libraries, and bots out there. There are IRC servers in most distros. There are JS servers in NPM. Why not use them?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#150

Post by jarmitage »

While we're on it, can anyone recommend a good open source calendar app with decent web and mobile interfaces? (if there is one)

I'm building internal tools for the record label I make music with. We're going to try self-hosting Zulip vs. Mattermark for collaboration, and it would be great to have a calendar that integrates well.

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