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If not, given that searchable archives are one of the ways Slack makes money, makes me wonder why there's not an open source way to pull the chats and archive them in a way that's cheaper and independent of Slack.
Is that really happening that open source communities use Slack as their primary communications channel? I haven't seen that happening in the communities I participate in (Python/Django/...). What I do see is that more and more communities switch from IRC to Slack as the primary "sync" channel (while still maintaining mailing lists, bug trackers and the like). And as much as I hate it, the success can't be denied. Es…
Slack chat provides a number of nice features that IRC (at least out of the box... I know there have been attempts) does not. IRCCloud at least lets you see chat history, which IRC doesn't have out of the box but Slack does.
Does Slack's terms of use forbidden creating an off platform archive? If not, given that searchable archives are one of the ways Slack makes money, makes me wonder why there's not an open source way to pull the chats and archive them in a way that's cheaper and independent of Slack.
forbid creating an off platform archive
Just try and stop me?
Synchronous communication, indeed, is bad for the main communication channel. However, as a secondary communication channel, it can serve important needs.
When people are looking not to just get a single issue resolved, but to form a community, this community is often based on informal communication and emotions. Seeing the same people in the member list every day, exchanging little inside jokes, getting to know individual members of the community on a personal basis — this is something completely irrelevant for the user of the open-source product, but can be an important emotional component that motivates people to stay in the community and continue to put in effort into the project.
And, of course, a synchronous channel, where you can get more lax on moderation, is a much more suitable tool for this purpose.
I don't know why didn't just evolve irc. Feature wise slack doesn't really bring much new. It just has a good interface. If someone made an irc client as easy to use as slack then we'd have our answer.
> It just has a good interface But this is such a big deal. You make it sound like a good interface is trivial. It isn't, and it makes a huge difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slack chat provides a number of nice features that IRC (at least out of the box... I know there have been attempts) does not. IRCCloud at least lets you see chat history, which IRC doesn't have out of the box but Slack does.
So get a better IRC client? Really not hard to do things like syntax formatting and auto link follow (GUI versions of IRCII had plugins for this in the late 90s, so it's not like it's even a novel idea).
I don't know why didn't just evolve irc. Feature wise slack doesn't really bring much new. It just has a good interface. If someone made an irc client as easy to use as slack then we'd have our answer.
> It just has a good interface But this is such a big deal. You make it sound like a good interface is trivial. It isn't, and it makes a huge difference.
Does Slack's terms of use forbidden creating an off platform archive? If not, given that searchable archives are one of the ways Slack makes money, makes me wonder why there's not an open source way to pull the chats and archive them in a way that's cheaper and independent of Slack.
Is that really happening that open source communities use Slack as their primary communications channel? I haven't seen that happening in the communities I participate in (Python/Django/...). What I do see is that more and more communities switch from IRC to Slack as the primary "sync" channel (while still maintaining mailing lists, bug trackers and the like). And as much as I hate it, the success can't be denied. Es…
WordPress.org seems to fully integrate Slack into its processes. And as a now outsider, intuitively, it seems they've been able to scale their community more and continue their rapid development.
The OP does make a fantastic argument on the open/public point, but synchronize communication is also a necessity for collaboration.