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Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

wired.com

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Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#81

Post by betenoire »

findjashua wrote: post #73
wlesieutre wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mattermost claims to have "Native Applications". ( http://www.mattermost.org/community-applications/#native ) Turns out they mean "electron is a native application, and our app is a webpage inside of electron, so our webpage is a native application." Bummer. I use both Slack and Hipchat for different groups, and I'm not happy with the wrapped webapp for either of them.

Visual Studio Code: 1. is a much more complex application 2. has no perceptible performance issues 3. is also built on Electron

"and [the] app is a webpage inside of electron"

That seems to be the main gripe. Is that true for VSC too (I've never used it)?

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#82

Post by groovy2shoes »

lotyrin wrote: post #60
DeepYogurt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't hard to use. Firefox has a great extension called Chatzilla that makes it wonderfully easy to use. Maybe it's hard to host, but you can just claim a channel on freenode if you need to.

It's easier to host (at least on the scale that most teams would, few nodes, few tens of users, no need for services -- basically `apt-get install ircd-of-choice`) than to use, but I disagree that it's easy to use. I can tell anyone in any kind of role (senior to junior, technical to non-technical) on my team to "Download (the/a) client for X and join #channel #channel2" "Follow the directions to set it up so changes…

Are you fucking kidding me? I've been using IRC since I was 10. If a 10-year-old can figure it out, I think a professional engineer can figure it out. Using your typical IRC client to join a channel is just 4 steps:

    1. Download IRC client.
    2. Pick a nickname.
    3. Pick a server.
    4. Join a channel.
With something like kiwiirc, you can even omit steps 1, 3, and 4: you can give someone a URL to a particular channel on a particular server. Just pick a nickname and click "join". It's really simple.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#83

Post by ex3ndr »

scrollaway wrote: post #78

A hundred different chat systems mentioned here. None of them compatible with one another. Well, I guess a couple of them have IRC gateways, but you have to actually set those up. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose your UI? Pick and choose your "integrations", your "plugins", your client, etc without having to lose your entire userbase, history, contacts? Some sort of open protocol. Urgh, I've been…

We are actually trying to make open protocol in https://actor.im with federation with https://matrix.org. It seems that only Actor and Matrix understand importance of federation.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#84

Post by alextgordon »

cristianpascu wrote: post #54
wlesieutre wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mattermost claims to have "Native Applications". ( http://www.mattermost.org/community-applications/#native ) Turns out they mean "electron is a native application, and our app is a webpage inside of electron, so our webpage is a native application." Bummer. I use both Slack and Hipchat for different groups, and I'm not happy with the wrapped webapp for either of them.

Being build in HTML and being a webapp are very different things. I don't think rendering HTML is significantly worse than rendering some "native" UI kit. If it's not loading pages from the internet, which I'm sure Slack doesn't, than the experience should be pretty much the same.

On OS X, Adium, Textual and Colloquy are predominantly built in HTML. It's hardly groundbreaking.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#85

Post by justinkramp »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #31

One thing that nobody's mentioned yet is encryption. A Slack alternative that's end-to-end encrypted (at least for private messaging between users) and has encryption for chatrooms would be worth my time.

Semaphor from SpiderOak looks promising

https://spideroak.com/solutions/semaphor

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#86

Post by skrebbel »

betenoire wrote: post #81
findjashua wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visual Studio Code: 1. is a much more complex application 2. has no perceptible performance issues 3. is also built on Electron

"and [the] app is a webpage inside of electron" That seems to be the main gripe. Is that true for VSC too (I've never used it)?

yes.

if you're curious, download it and open devtools, it's in one of the menus. you get the usual Chrome devtools and you can edit the entire editor.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#87

Post by groovy2shoes »

munin wrote: post #7
tribaal wrote: post #2

If only there was a well supported, standard, open and interoperable text messaging protocol (with multiple implementations) that companies could host themselves... Oh wait, IRC.

if only getting external collaborators or non-technical users into IRC didn't involve sending them a 15-step howto on configuring screen and ssh and could be as simple as "check your email and click the link you get" and, if only there was push button per channel access control set up out of the box so that some users can join some channels but not others! no, not channel keys, those are busted (what do we do when so…

kiwiirc

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#88

Post by scrollaway »

ex3ndr wrote: post #83
scrollaway wrote: post #78

A hundred different chat systems mentioned here. None of them compatible with one another. Well, I guess a couple of them have IRC gateways, but you have to actually set those up. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose your UI? Pick and choose your "integrations", your "plugins", your client, etc without having to lose your entire userbase, history, contacts? Some sort of open protocol. Urgh, I've been…

We are actually trying to make open protocol in https://actor.im with federation with https://matrix.org . It seems that only Actor and Matrix understand importance of federation.

Yeah, I heard about it. It looks very promising, good luck.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#89

Post by cybette »

whitegrape wrote: post #68
cybette wrote: post #64

What about Telegram? It's partially open source (clients only for now) and provides end-to-end encryption.

http://unhandledexpression.com/2013/12/17/telegram-stand-bac...

Thanks for the link. However it is quite old, and Telegram was responding to the discussions and comments, demonstrating at least some respect for the feedback and perhaps doing something about it. Is there a more recent audit? I came across this - https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard - a while back but it doesn't seem very thorough.

Then there's also Ricochet: https://ricochet.im/

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#90

Post by 91bananas »

Kalium wrote: post #50
navait wrote: post #36

For talking about a race, Wired seems to have neglected a crucial technology: ircv3[1]. I'm not very fond of IRCv2, and have moved away from it where I previously used IRC. But IRC is popular, has a lot of clients, and v3 has a lot of promise. Why didn't the author bother to mention it? [1]: http://ircv3.net/

IRCv3 lacks a logo, a startup, and VC funding. So people who write tech news seem to often be unaware that it even exists.

Doesn't it also lack a common, arguably nice, frontend? With integrations to everything under the sun pre-built, requiring no management by the implementers? Built in bouncers, searchable history, etc?
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