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

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

#31

Post by kidsil »

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…

For me, only Gitter makes perfect sense. Because it's based on GitHub repositories, I can see why this should be used instead of Slack.

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

#32

Post by tyrion »

I tried to spin up the docker container locally and it worked until it had to send me a mail for registration.

Looking at the README it says that it does not work if my ISP is blocking port 25, which I don't think it is.

But anyway I created a droplet on digitalocean and ran the container there, but "MySQL init process failed."

I would love to try this project, or at least try a demo deployment somewhere :)

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

#33

Post by chii »

timdorr wrote: post #6

Here's the code: https://github.com/mattermost/platform From the look of the screenshots ( http://www.mattermost.org/70-2/ ), I'd say there are some copyright concerns with the styles. This isn't a Slack alternative, it's a Slack clone. That's very problematic from a copyright stance. Why not create your own design style? Gogs had (has?) this same issue: https://github.com/gogits/gogs/issues/1069

> That's very problematic from a copyright stance

why? they didn't copy slack (i assume) - it just looks similar. Slack doesn't (and shouldn't be allowed) own a look and feel, as long as the implementation of it is cleanroom.

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

#34

Post by jnbiche »

drummer32 wrote: post #29
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because almost certainly engineers will want to integrate an on-premises system into their existing system, and that will trigger the AGPL for all the systems that are network-connected to the AGPL system.

Unless you are sure that your engineers will know to not try to integrate the AGPL software with any of your existing systems, I agree that people should just stay away.

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

#35

Post by lorenzhs »

Dowwie wrote: post #12
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #7

> Teams who can’t use SaaS rely on cryptic, decades-old technologies. As an example, the US Army uses myIRC to order missile strikes "myIRC" doesn't exist. The name of the protocol is IRC. The name of a popular Windows client is mIRC. WikiLeaks called their leak "mIRC logs," which is where this trope came from. The United States military (not just the Army) uses Internet Relay Chat for a whole lot of C2. It runs on a…

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

There already are a number of IRC client web frontends. The one I'm working on is Glowing Bear -- https://github.com/glowing-bear/glowing-bear . It uses a proper IRC client running on a server (WeeChat in a terminal multiplexer) and connects to that via WebSockets. Minimal reinvention of the wheel, and you can continue using all those nice scripts, triggers, and filters that WeeChat offers. The frontend (Glowing Bear) is completely static and runs 100% in your browser, connecting to your server directly.

I really don't get those projects that consist of a designer frontend and a terrible half-baked IRC client in nodejs.

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

#36

Post by lukebennett »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #15
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?

This is my biggest problem with Slack. It's a cool product that could have been built over IRC . But no, they had to create their own walled garden.

Whilst I take your point, worth noting that Slack does offer an IRC gateway to allow for use via an IRC client. Not quite the same thing as basing everything on IRC, but better than nothing?

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

#37

Post by jdiez17 »

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.

I also assumed Mattermost supported IRC, without even checking. It's a bit disappointing that it doesn't, but I wonder how easy it'd be to add support for IRC in Mattermost, given that we have the source code?

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

#38

Post by lmm »

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…

So many slack alternatives are coming up because slack is really good. It's that simple.

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

#39

Post by javiercr »

> We’re a YC-backed indie video game company releasing an open source alternative to Slack.

Don't want to troll you guys here, but if you're a video game company why are you spending so much time building a Slack clone?

I was expecting some short of explanation in your blog post like "we did this because this serves as a core piece of our company for X reason and Slack didn't fit our use case for Y reason".

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