Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#101

Post by seba_dos1 » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

munin wrote: post #97

ve55 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freenode sometimes does get a lot of abuse, which is a shame. Some networks definitely do have better anti-spam and anti-botnet functionality, but I don't think most users ever even notice this. Even on Freenode, most channels will go without problems like botnets or channel takeovers for most or all of their life. If you're running your own irc server, you'll probably never notice anything. If you do, it's as simple…

> it's as simple as adding a server password is there a way for me to, instead of using a server password, use something like OAuth so that I can grant access to the server based on my companies central login database? otherwise, every time someone leaves the project, we have to rotate the server password...

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, however, using OAuth would probably need some nice integration on client side you'd have to provide. Maybe just login to the server using your credentials and authenticate via LDAP?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#102

Post by synthmeat » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #59

ebiester wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does IRC Cloud allow new employees to get the entire history of the channel? I can't see how it would from looking at its page.

I don't believe so, but you should look into IRCv3. We need to fix this problem at the root. http://ircv3.net/

That page/project desparately needs a bullet point list of what it wants to fix with IRC.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#103

Post by pronoiac » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

I've noticed many hosts call out IRC in the TOS, as IRC is prone to DOS attacks.

And is there Giphy integration? Or editing of posted comments?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#104

Post by sdegutis » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:41 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #74

scrollaway wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but with that said ... IRC has serious issues, and dancing around them or pretending they're not there is not helping. I talk a bit about them here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JeromeLeclanche/posts/icC6gDToB... The reason Slack exists and can be so successful yet entirely proprietary is a symptom that IRC is not good enough and that has to be fixed. It is the manifestation of the papercuts we, IRC users, ha…

I really resonate with this position. IRC is open source and it has had problems FOR DECADES. IM programs from third parties add genuinely useful features which people clearly want. So rather than call for a general boycott of Slack (a negative approach) why not call to fix IRC?

IRC is just a well-established and battle-tested server/client protocol. I'm eager for the day when a competing open source server/client protocol emerges and takes over. I imagine all it would take is a really good reference implementation server and client that everyone can just start using, right?

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#105

Post by seba_dos1 » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

ebiester wrote: post #53

chris_wot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For buildbots, it's not that hard. See http://docs.buildbot.net/current/tutorial/index.html Instead of using slack, use IRC Cloud.

Does IRC Cloud allow new employees to get the entire history of the channel? I can't see how it would from looking at its page.

Neither does Slack, unless you pay.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#106

Post by mshenfield » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

Slack is the wrong choice for large community projects for one pragmatic reason: the 10,000 message limit for free teams. I participate in a large developer community that lives on Slack. Conversations are deleted quickly on less active channels like #lisp or #volleyball, sometimes within a day. This is frustrating when trying to connect to like minded people and also maintain a record and resource for community members. And at $6.67/user/month it really isn't viable to upgrade.

I can't speak to the quality of projects like Mattermost [1] and Zulip [2], though I'm excited by their concepts. IMO trying these, or using a hosted service designed for community projects like Gitter [3] are necessary alternatives.

[1] http://www.mattermost.org/ [2] https://www.zulip.org/ [3] https://gitter.im/

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#107

Post by cpitman » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

brazzledazzle wrote: post #81

tabbott wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that Zulip ( https://zulip.org/ ) is a new open source option that has basically all the features IRC/Slack does. So using open source tools for open source development doesn't have to mean dealing with IRC's limitations. (I'm one of the Zulip maintainers; happy to answer any questions about it).

I've been meaning to give Zulip a try. How many users can it handle? Less importantly: What would you say its biggest missing feature is vs Slack? And conversely what does it bring to the table that Slack can't touch yet?

IMO, push notifications for mobile applications is a big hole. It's not an easy problem to solve, but as of right now I believe you have to release your own flavor of the mobile applications for this to work.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#108

Post by detaro » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #56

programminggeek wrote: post #43

IRC kind of sucks. The experience is worse. That's why people keep making these different tools - Campfire, HipChat, Slack. It's not just a technical thing. It's an experience thing. IRC is technically fine, just way too nerdy to be main line of business software these days.

So what you are saying is that the client software is not intuitive. You do know that all that needs to occur is to make a nice client?

Sure. "all that needs to occur" is pretty useless if it hasn't occurred.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#109

Post by ekimekim » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

brazzledazzle wrote: post #81

tabbott wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth mentioning that Zulip ( https://zulip.org/ ) is a new open source option that has basically all the features IRC/Slack does. So using open source tools for open source development doesn't have to mean dealing with IRC's limitations. (I'm one of the Zulip maintainers; happy to answer any questions about it).

I've been meaning to give Zulip a try. How many users can it handle? Less importantly: What would you say its biggest missing feature is vs Slack? And conversely what does it bring to the table that Slack can't touch yet?

I'll field the latter. I've used both Zulip and Slack in small team (5-20 people) settings and I much prefer Zulip.

In particular I like how the zulip UI is single-stream by default. Messages from different channels are interleaved, so you can read all new messages at a glance, but still well separated by visual elements including color - I don't find it confusing. And I can focus down to any particular channel , or reply to that channel, in one click.

It goes all-in on this "many streams, one view" model with the concept of topics - lightweight "subject headers" for individual sub-streams of a channel. This neatly avoids the "two conversations at once" problems that can occur in other systems occasionally.

Some more minor points are a wider range of markup available than slack (including syntax highlighting for code), and better support for short-lived private groups (ie. "a PM between Alice, Bob and Charlie")

As to what I think Slack does better: More one-click integrations (and likely other backend admin stuff that I don't see as a simple user). AFAIK Zulip doesn't have an irc gateway. Also when I last used it (over a year ago) Zulip's mobile client was quite poor.

I'm sure others can come up with more differences - to be honest I tend to treat slack as "slightly smarter irc" so I don't pay attention to all the bells and whistles.

Finally I should caveat that these same features I like are things people dislike about Zulip - it's more dissimilar to existing solutions and people will always have their preferred ways of doing things. I personally find Zulip amazing for me.

Re: Please don't use Slack for FOSS projects

#110

Post by cdcarter » Sun, Nov 01, 2015, 4:44 PM UTC

manish_gill wrote: post #51

syaz1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to IRC's NickServ, ChanServ, and their variants depending on the server? Expired nick, exposed passwords due to insecure authentication mechanism, no standard client, and so many more I can cite. I love IRC and grew up with it. But don't compare it to Slack for technical knowledge requirement.

I know people who don't understand what a Server is and even they can use IRC. Not saying that it's as simple and convenient as Slack, but making it out to be this huge complex thing is being disingenuous.

My PM was able to set up Slack integration with Trello and Github in a few moments, and found that connection incredibly useful. She didn't have to KNOW that she wanted it, she just saw it on the list of possibilities. She didn't have to go looking for instructions, she just hit connect. She didn't have to ask me or one of the other consultants to stop billing project time to set up some tech for the office, she could do it herself.

In my firm at least, Slack is an incredible tool for our PMs and owner, and it also works well and covers all use cases for the consultants.