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

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#171

Post by paulddraper » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 5:52 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #152

astazangasta wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 u…

Companies are using Slack because they explicitly don't want to have to deal with this and would rather someone else take care of their chat infrastructure, and with more features.

Absolutely. My company uses it (among other things) for handling production issues.

We'd rather not manage that ourselves. It's just one more thing we can screw up.

This is different than the FOSS subject of the article, but it true that convenience is compelling.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#172

Post by azernik » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

andreyf wrote: post #142

BoxFour wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We're interested in tinkering with a lot of technology. We're not interested in tinkering with boring (admittedly a very subjective judgment) technology like a chat server.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#173

Post by sandGorgon » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 5:54 PM UTC

heavenlyhash wrote: post #170

Come to the Matrix! [1] - Open! Free on both the beer|culture axis! - Modern! (There's actually control structures in the protocol. Imagine: a chat protocol that's actually ascii safe! (Yes, yes, unicode too: the joke is, IRC isn't even ascii safe .)) - Many platforms! (The matrix.org site has a full client list; I'm personally using it via a linux desktop client (that also works on windows and mac), the web, my ipad…

I'm curious if you ever evaluated something like Pubnub or Pusher and how matrix stacks up versus them (as a self hosted chat API for mobile platforms)

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#174

Post by sandGorgon » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 5:57 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).

do you have an android sdk that someone can use to integrate chat into an app ? I'm kind of comparing you to Pubnub or Pusher.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#175

Post by randomsearch » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

rando289 wrote: post #153

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…

> If IRC were good enough to handle the needs of small software company communication, people would use IRC. Given A and B, if A were good enough, people would use A... What if B is better? What if both are good enough? You go on as if your first sentence stands up on it's own. It makes no sense at all.

> Given A and B, if A were good enough, people would use A... What if B is better? What if both are good enough?

Prior to Slack existing, lots of people who now use Slack weren't using IRC, because Slack offers a lot more.

Everyone I know working in academia or on a startup that uses any kind of instant chat uses Slack. None of them previously used IRC for the same purpose.

And it's just _obvious_ why, once you've used Slack for a while. They're quite different -- IRC is a protocol for real-time discussion on the internet. Slack is a business tool that incorporates real-time discussion.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#176

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

jbarciauskas wrote: post #126

I'm responsible for a medium to large FOSS project. I noticed that Wordpress had recently moved to Slack, and asked someone I knew over there how engagement had changed after the move. He reported they saw about a 10x increase in users moving to Slack (100 -> 1,000). ( https://twitter.com/HypertextRanch/status/627122747664113664 ) I get the arguments about not using it, but my priority is providing the best tools to…

I've heard the Wordpress tale and I would guess that it's more related to the announcement and press around it generating attention than it is the merits of either platform. A lot of people who didn't know Wordpress had a chat room probably joined up.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#177

Post by draw_down » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

I agree Slack is a poor fit for this. But god, using Slack makes it painfully obvious how shitty IRC is. I almost wish people would stop mentioning them together. I hate IRC and I have since the 90s, it's just bad.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#178

Post by randomsearch » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 6:03 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.

> 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 don't use AWS or Google App Engine or Heroku? etc. Why?

I use Facebook for a lot of my communications. Seems to be working out OK so far.

Use the tools that help you get your work done efficiently. Consider the long-term consequences, of course, but if someone took all of my Slack team messages and told me I couldn't have them back, I'd be annoyed but it wouldn't affect my productivity much.

OTOH, losing the ability to coordinate via Slack, as you're suggesting, would certainly lower my productivity.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#179

Post by RyanZAG » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 6:03 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #41

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.

Agreed, but with that said ... IRC has serious issues, and dancing around them or pretending they're not there is not helping. I talk a bit about them here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JeromeLeclanche/posts/icC6gDToB... The reason Slack exists and can be so successful yet entirely proprietary is a symptom that IRC is not good enough and that has to be fixed. It is the manifestation of the papercuts we, IRC users, ha…

What is wrong with Mattermost? I've never actually used it, but it seems like a better OSS slack competitor than irc. If it really is just the problem of 1 project per tab, surely fixing that minor issue is easier than a whole new IRC spec?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#180

Post by rekoros » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

We (sameroom.io) bridge channels/room in Slack, IRC, Gitter, and several other systems (about 14). It's a commercial venture, mainly aimed at helping large companies manage the lack of federation between team chat factions.

However, we do what we can to support open source and we'd be happy to provide sameroom functionality to open source projects. Please reach out on sameroom.io/contact to take us up on the offer.