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Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

mattermost.org

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Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#21

Post by skratlo »

vidarh wrote: post #14
Dowwie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many open source slack alternatives before someone writes one that actually utilizes the IRC protocol? Is there a defensible argument against using IRC?

The IRC protocol isn't pretty, and there are plenty of incompatible server implementations, but if you're controlling both the server end and the client end it's certainly where I'd start. My first thought when I saw Slack was "someone did a pretty web irc client finally, cool" (I have no idea if they use irc internally? but it seemed such a direct match)

The IRC protocol might not be pretty, but what protocol is? HTTP? AMQP? XMPP? Protocols are not meant to be pretty, just efficient and robust enough to support the desired feature set. It's a shame that none of Slack, Hipchat, now Mattermost support IRC. They're all just IRC clones, drawing on the same ideas, just giving you a crappy (but pretty!) web interface.

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#22

Post by ctolsen »

tracker1 wrote: post #17

One thing I really like and appreciate is that there's a dockerfile right in the root of the project, which makes spinning up a container a relatively nice experience... haven't run it or looked into the code though... that just struck out at me... Looking at the dockerfile, it seems pretty big, and it also strikes me slightly that they have dependencies on node, ruby and go, along with mysql and redis. The UI appear…

I definitely appreciate projects having Dockerfiles included, but yeah, that's not a good one. They should simply include instructions about how to link it to MySQL/Redis, or use something like docker-compose.

The way it's done now makes it inherently unscalable. Also, there are so many steps that it makes pushing an image to a Docker repository a massive pain.

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#23

Post by sehr »

tracker1 wrote: post #17

One thing I really like and appreciate is that there's a dockerfile right in the root of the project, which makes spinning up a container a relatively nice experience... haven't run it or looked into the code though... that just struck out at me... Looking at the dockerfile, it seems pretty big, and it also strikes me slightly that they have dependencies on node, ruby and go, along with mysql and redis. The UI appear…

Looks like it's only being used for their scss files.

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#24

Post by DonHopkins »

volent wrote: post #5

I don't really get why there is so many Slack alternatives coming up these days. On every post like this there is tons of comment linking to other Slack alternatives, it's not like this is gonna be _the_ Slack-alternative. Here is a non exhaustive list : RocketChat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624737 Let's Chat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040841 Friends : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=94…

As long as Gitter was copying Stewart Butterfield, they should have named it "Gittr".

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#25

Post by sneak »

robmccoll wrote: post #19
volent wrote: post #5

I don't really get why there is so many Slack alternatives coming up these days. On every post like this there is tons of comment linking to other Slack alternatives, it's not like this is gonna be _the_ Slack-alternative. Here is a non exhaustive list : RocketChat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624737 Let's Chat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040841 Friends : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=94…

Does anyone know if these or any others have native desktop and/or mobile clients?

Or, more importantly, GApps OAuth/SAML SSO?

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#26

Post by pibefision »

ctolsen wrote: post #22
tracker1 wrote: post #17

One thing I really like and appreciate is that there's a dockerfile right in the root of the project, which makes spinning up a container a relatively nice experience... haven't run it or looked into the code though... that just struck out at me... Looking at the dockerfile, it seems pretty big, and it also strikes me slightly that they have dependencies on node, ruby and go, along with mysql and redis. The UI appear…

I definitely appreciate projects having Dockerfiles included, but yeah, that's not a good one. They should simply include instructions about how to link it to MySQL/Redis, or use something like docker-compose. The way it's done now makes it inherently unscalable. Also, there are so many steps that it makes pushing an image to a Docker repository a massive pain.

+1 for a Docker Compose file

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#27

Post by tracker1 »

sehr wrote: post #23
tracker1 wrote: post #17

One thing I really like and appreciate is that there's a dockerfile right in the root of the project, which makes spinning up a container a relatively nice experience... haven't run it or looked into the code though... that just struck out at me... Looking at the dockerfile, it seems pretty big, and it also strikes me slightly that they have dependencies on node, ruby and go, along with mysql and redis. The UI appear…

Looks like it's only being used for their scss files.

Slightly weird that they didn't use node's module for that (which uses the compiled sass), since the front end is a react application, and seems to use node for building.

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#28

Post by grizzles »

volent wrote: post #5

I don't really get why there is so many Slack alternatives coming up these days. On every post like this there is tons of comment linking to other Slack alternatives, it's not like this is gonna be _the_ Slack-alternative. Here is a non exhaustive list : RocketChat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9624737 Let's Chat : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9040841 Friends : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=94…

Anyone know which of these has an easy integration component for chatting with web visitors?

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#29

Post by drummer32 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #20
nzseth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be a problem?

I haven't worked for a company in four years that permits the installation of AGPL software because the ramifications are still unclear and largely untested. MongoDB asserts, for example, that just using MongoDB doesn't require you to do anything, even though the license text is in clear contradiction to the assertion. I do not think MongoDB understands its own license. Chris DiBona has spoken in public about Google'…

I don't understand you reasoning at all. What could be the problem with using a chat software that is released under AGPL?

Re: Mattermost: Open-source, on-premises, Slack alternative

#30

Post by maggit »

skratlo wrote: post #21
vidarh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRC protocol isn't pretty, and there are plenty of incompatible server implementations, but if you're controlling both the server end and the client end it's certainly where I'd start. My first thought when I saw Slack was "someone did a pretty web irc client finally, cool" (I have no idea if they use irc internally? but it seemed such a direct match)

The IRC protocol might not be pretty, but what protocol is? HTTP? AMQP? XMPP? Protocols are not meant to be pretty, just efficient and robust enough to support the desired feature set. It's a shame that none of Slack, Hipchat, now Mattermost support IRC. They're all just IRC clones, drawing on the same ideas, just giving you a crappy (but pretty!) web interface.

Slack "supports" IRC in that you can allow IRC connections, and then people can connect to your Slack instance via IRC. This might also be the case for some of the alternatives.

And it's a pain in the neck! It means that some of the participants in the channel are not able to read what's happened while they were away. Some of them get encoding errors. The IRC people do not get the same graphical elements as everybody else. They can't use custom /-commands.

In conclusion, in order to communicate the most effectively, you have to know who's on IRC and think about the differences in user experience for these people versus everybody else.

IRC has weaknesses (namely lack of centralized logging and unspecified text encoding) and fixing these weaknesses means forgoing support for existing IRC clients.

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