I've used RocketChat at a previous company, basically a clone of slack. I didn't have to manage it, but it seemed to work great.
I managed RocketChat. It was pretty easy, but we weren't stressing it.
Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
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Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#52I've used RocketChat at a previous company, basically a clone of slack. I didn't have to manage it, but it seemed to work great.
I do manage an instance of rocket.chat, and I am no longer a fan.
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#53Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not necessarily true. If you're a certified non-profit, you can get free Slack with unlimited message history for up to 250 users ( https://slack.com/help/articles/204368833 ).
> for up to 250 users The thesis defended in the article is that Slack is not suited to communicate with the userbase of open source projects. Capping a basic feature such as collecting message history at 250 users is a limitation that supports the author's thesis, as clearly it demonstrate that Slack is unable to handle the communication needs of a moderately popular open source project.
Many projects prefer a limited history for interactive chats.
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#55Acting like IRC is equal in functionality to Slack or Discord is straight up delusional. One of the biggest problems with IRC is that there is no immediately obvious way to jump into a channel and browse or search the history. Also, because there are so many IRC clients, and so many servers out there, one person's IRC experience can vastly differ from another's. IRC also doesn't have any of the modern amenities like…
I hate when my experience differs from others. I like to have the same experiences as everyone else because we are all the same.
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most servers do, and a simple channel mode solves the spam problem (which isn't nowhere near as much of a problem as email spam).
I don't believe that it does. For a week or two about a year ago, freenode had a problem where accounts would join channel, spam links to sites accusing prominent people of child porn, and be kicked a moment later. If there's a channel mode that can stop that, while still keeping the channel useful for people who need support, I couldn't find it.
The spammers were using unidentified nicks. The network has channel mode 'r', that is used for only allowing identified nicks into the channel.
I'm not really a fan of channel mode 'r' for support channels. Someone might join the channel for a simple question or two, they get the answers and never return. Having to register a nickname and check email can be a bit annoying for some people.
The network also has user mode 'R' that blocks messages from unidentified users.
They added a spam filter into the IRCd over a year ago.
https://freenode.net/kb/answer/channelmodes
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#57The biggest problem for me in IRC is lack of good mobile clients. You can't get push notifications and if you want to stay persistently online then you need to keep a perpetual battery-draining socket open. You could setup a relay on your server ,but it's cumbersome and too technical for most people.
My wife uses thelounge (self-hosted instance) as a progressive web application on her Android phone. It supports push notifications and file uploads. Before this, she used IRC Cloud, which also has a convenient mobile application with those features.
As for myself, I use Weechat-Android (for about 6 years now) and am very happy with that on my Android phone. It uses a websocket with SSL, so I get notifications and it uses very little battery (or data).
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#58Acting like IRC is equal in functionality to Slack or Discord is straight up delusional. One of the biggest problems with IRC is that there is no immediately obvious way to jump into a channel and browse or search the history. Also, because there are so many IRC clients, and so many servers out there, one person's IRC experience can vastly differ from another's. IRC also doesn't have any of the modern amenities like…
> Also, because there are so many IRC clients, and so many servers out there, one person's IRC experience can vastly differ from another's. How the fuck did people come to think of this as a negative? One of the stupidest things about "modern" IT services is that the public interface is a user interface instead of a machine readable iterface, so you can't build a user interface that fits your needs or preferences, yo…
Agreed. The worst thing about all these * as a service things it that you're locked in to a single client for that service and many of them have awful and annoying UI's. The netflix UI isn't great, the audible one is abominable, the google music one is very bare bones and they don't care because they have a monopoly on the content. There is no incentive to improve, they have to be just good enough.
Having many IRC clients is a good thing because I can have the experience I want, not the experience someone else wants me to have.
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> for up to 250 users The thesis defended in the article is that Slack is not suited to communicate with the userbase of open source projects. Capping a basic feature such as collecting message history at 250 users is a limitation that supports the author's thesis, as clearly it demonstrate that Slack is unable to handle the communication needs of a moderately popular open source project.
Many projects prefer a limited history for interactive chats.
Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects (2015)
#60The biggest problem for me in IRC is lack of good mobile clients. You can't get push notifications and if you want to stay persistently online then you need to keep a perpetual battery-draining socket open. You could setup a relay on your server ,but it's cumbersome and too technical for most people.
I use ZNC with the znc-push module. It supports a ton of different services, but I use it with Pushover. Notifications come in on time even when my phone is deep sleep.