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Bye bye BetterSlack

g3rv4.com

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Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#21

Post by g3rv4 »

canadaduane wrote: post #17
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #5

Folks, use IRC, XMPP, Matrix, etc. Using proprietary protocols is dumb .

I worked at a medium-sized company during the transition from IRC to Slack. The problem the company had was a split in comms networks. There was a lack of will on the part of engineers to move to GChat, and non-engineers were unwilling to respond/engage on IRC. Marketing, Sales, and Admin were using GChat, while engineering used IRC. Getting everyone on the same comms platform was a major improvement. I'm not saying…

lol... it rings a bell

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#22

Post by as1mov »

gandreani wrote: post #6
danmg wrote: post #2

Slack has really jumped the shark. Between this and their cutting off their IRC gateway, I don't really see the point of using it. You can't be openly hostile to people who create "hacks" like this if you're claiming to be a communication medium for "hackers."

Slack is no longer for "hackers". It's mainstream now. My company of 500 with only 30 devs uses it. These are power moves by Slack. They want to have greater control over the communication medium and presentation If you thought they were ever going to support extensions of their IRC gateway for long, then you misunderstood their product and who their market was or rather who their market became

> My company of 500 with only 30 devs uses it.

Same at my workplace. Slack is mostly used by the managers, all the devs avoid it. Even if you don't mind the proprietory protocol, the performance even on beefy machines is an absolute dumpster fire, that nobody wants to touch the app with a ten foot pole.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#23

Post by sofaofthedamned »

canadaduane wrote: post #17
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #5

Folks, use IRC, XMPP, Matrix, etc. Using proprietary protocols is dumb .

I worked at a medium-sized company during the transition from IRC to Slack. The problem the company had was a split in comms networks. There was a lack of will on the part of engineers to move to GChat, and non-engineers were unwilling to respond/engage on IRC. Marketing, Sales, and Admin were using GChat, while engineering used IRC. Getting everyone on the same comms platform was a major improvement. I'm not saying…

I worked at Cisco, who had their own awful IM client. Our team used Hangouts instead with great success.

Company-wide conferences were a ball-ache. The corporate solution didn't mute by default, so with 40000 people in a conf it devolved into a "TURN YOUR MIC OFF" shouting match for the first 10 minutes.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#24

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

canadaduane wrote: post #17
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #5

Folks, use IRC, XMPP, Matrix, etc. Using proprietary protocols is dumb .

I worked at a medium-sized company during the transition from IRC to Slack. The problem the company had was a split in comms networks. There was a lack of will on the part of engineers to move to GChat, and non-engineers were unwilling to respond/engage on IRC. Marketing, Sales, and Admin were using GChat, while engineering used IRC. Getting everyone on the same comms platform was a major improvement. I'm not saying…

No, it was dumb, and I didn't stutter. It's an extraordinarily short-sighted move to switch to Slack. IRC may not be for everyone, but clients like The Lounge and alternatives like Matrix are quite friendly to non-engineers.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#25

Post by chipotle_coyote »

g3rv4 wrote: post #14
dasmoth wrote: post #11

I wonder how much longer Slack’s web client is going to remain a first class product? Clearly, it was a good way to drive adoption, but seems that at this point they want ever more control.

now that they got all that money, I wouldn't be surprised if they killed the web app and moved away from Electron to do native apps that are harder to be messed with.

I'd love a better-performing, less memory-intensive and, well, more native Slack app; I'm all for that part. The "harder to mess with" part is a little more concerning.

(I didn't catch the original mention of BetterSlack a few days ago, so ironically, your "Welp, gotta withdraw this!" message here is the first I've heard of it. This seems to be my usual timing with such things, though...)

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#27

Post by whoisjuan »

I think you can safely ignore this cease and desist. Just change the name and add a disclaimer so your users know that by using your extension they are violating their acceptable use policy.

This is no different than any user writing a Tampermonkey script to modify any website they want to modify. Even further, this is no different than a user opening the Dev Tools console and modifying things there.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#28

Post by castis »

While I completely understand your decision to pull it; both their decision to flex their legal arm and your decision to not stand your ground are equally disappointing.

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#29

Post by splatzone »

g3rv4 wrote: post #18
comesee wrote: post #7

I dont see any legal reason why you can't publish the extension under a different name. Your extension is under no legal obligation to follow their acceptable use policy, only the users that use your extension.

There are two problems with this approach: 1. I don't want to get involved in that, even if I'm based in Uruguay and they'd have a hard time suing me. 2. What they could do is put resources to detect the extension and block it. We could start a mouse and cat game that they'd win... I don't have their resources to invest in it. After all, all I wanted was to solve Slack for me, and that would make it harder.

Could they really sue you for creating a chrome extension that modifies their webpage? That would be a very dark day for the internet. I can't imagine there's any legal basis for that, but it would be very interesting to hear a lawyer's opinion.

Well done on what you have achieved, keep fighting the good fight!

Re: Bye bye BetterSlack

#30

Post by g3rv4 »

alien1993 wrote: post #26

I understand the naming issue but from the look of it the extension only works locally, where's the issue with that?

they don't want people injecting javascript on their website. That's all there's to it. I'm not sending anything anywhere. I'm not storing anything. I'm not profiting from it.
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