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Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

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Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#21

Post by zokier »

hellbanner wrote: post #7

I'm seeing "No e2e encrypted DMs" as one of the cons for most of these.. anyone have a solution?

For the usecase I see these to be useful, I don't see lack of e2e such a huge concern. I would assume that in most cases the server would be more or less trusted in the context they are used in, so TLS style client-server security would be adequate.

In other words, if I really wanted to have discussion secret enough to warrant e2e I probably wouldn't be using company/project chat for that no matter what sort of promises it gives.

That being said, of course e2e chat would be beneficial addition, and might help especially in larger enterprise deployments.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#23

Post by Arathorn »

JoshMnem wrote: post #16

I wish that someone would build an easy-to-use layer on top of an open protocol like IRC or XMPP. The tool could manage setup, configuration, archiving, and notifications. Instead of building a walled garden that is merely accessible via an open protocol, it would be more interesting to build a thin layer on top of an XMPP server that could even be removed or replaced later, if desired.

They have - e.g. http://vector.im/beta on top of the Matrix.org protocol. [disclaimer, I work on Matrix]

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#24

Post by mugsie »

itistoday2 wrote: post #13
mugsie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making it poor for community building eh... slack has consistently said that large communities shouldn't use its services. - http://blog.freecodecamp.com/2015/06/so-yeah-we-tried-slack-... Go talk to the hundreds of FOSS communities that use IRC. they have all fixed the persistence / search problem, and there is quite a few high quality mobile and desktop clients for IRC.

> eh... slack has consistently said that large communities shouldn't use its services. That has nothing to do with Slack-like apps, and everything to do with Slack. > Go talk to the hundreds of FOSS communities that use IRC. they have all fixed the persistence / search problem I am part of many FOSS communities on IRC. None of them have "fixed" that problem. There might be one or two that archive the channel somewher…

http://eavesdrop.openstack.org - all channels, all meetings, in a nice index and searchable format (i.e. google search with site:http://eavesdrop.openstack.org )

There is a reason slack has a problem with that - scaling is hard.

There is also the advantage of not having silos - if I have a problem with a dependant library I can "/j #libname" and ask a question, instead of searching for what slack, or slack like tool they use, signing up, installing whatever app is needed to access it, and asking the question (and remembering what app they used, so I can keep it open for issues that run over a few days.)

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#25

Post by dwb »

pnathan wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the attraction that nerds have for Slack/Hipchat over a well-tended IRC server?

Where I work, before Slack, we had Campfire and only us developers bothered to sign up for it, get the client, etc. We switched to Slack and suddenly everyone was on it. UX matters so much. We don't have time to tend an IRC server and act as support for it. Slack lets the whole company sign up ultra-easily and get on board – there's simply no contest.

I lament the passing of the age of new open protocols too, trust me, I really do. But IRC+ecosystem just isn't that good these days, and getting stuff done matters more.

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#26

Post by seliopou »

JoshMnem wrote: post #16

I wish that someone would build an easy-to-use layer on top of an open protocol like IRC or XMPP. The tool could manage setup, configuration, archiving, and notifications. Instead of building a walled garden that is merely accessible via an open protocol, it would be more interesting to build a thin layer on top of an XMPP server that could even be removed or replaced later, if desired.

Pretty sure I heard somewhere that Slack uses a modified IRC bouncer (e.g., ZNC[0]) to implement accounts. Could be wrong about that, but if that is in fact the case, this whole Slack vs. IRC debate would take on a whole new level of absurdity.

[0]: http://wiki.znc.in/ZNC

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#27

Post by sirn »

itistoday2 wrote: post #6
pnathan wrote: post #3

Can someone explain the attraction that nerds have for Slack/Hipchat over a well-tended IRC server?

IRC simply lacks important desirable features, making it poor for community building (given the existence of better alternatives). The two biggest missing features are persistence and search. Other important missing features are ease of use in terms of creation of topic-focused channels, private channels, and high quality mobile and desktop clients.

> The two biggest missing features are persistence and search.

At very least for the persistence part, there is a proposal to add CHATHISTORY batch type[1] to IRCv3 which should allow the server to replay chat history on join (or on request). Search is something else that probably need a little bit more work (especially for a server-side search), though.

[1]: https://github.com/ircv3/ircv3-specifications/pull/156

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#28

Post by zokier »

Arathorn wrote: post #23
JoshMnem wrote: post #16

I wish that someone would build an easy-to-use layer on top of an open protocol like IRC or XMPP. The tool could manage setup, configuration, archiving, and notifications. Instead of building a walled garden that is merely accessible via an open protocol, it would be more interesting to build a thin layer on top of an XMPP server that could even be removed or replaced later, if desired.

They have - e.g. http://vector.im/beta on top of the Matrix.org protocol. [disclaimer, I work on Matrix]

Not to be too negative but based on quick glance it would seem like the Matrix protocol is really "noisy" if compared to something like IRC (which admittedly is ridiculously spartan). How much data ends up flowing down the wires for a simple "hello world" message?

Re: Five Open-Source Slack Alternatives

#29

Post by devit »

Why not just use e-mail mailing lists instead?

You get great apps for all devices (e-mail clients), notifications, encrypted direct messages, ability to send images/binaries/whatever, threaded communication, search, censorship resistance, filters, etc.

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