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Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
121–130 of 536 posts
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#122Feel like this argument happened 5 months ago and 5 months before that too
Because the things that are driving people to use Slack are the same as existed five months ago, and arguments like this do nothing to prevent people moving.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#123It's frustrating that the choice seems to be between modern closed tools like Slack and Hangouts and antiquated open tools like IRC and mailing lists.
Question for you: I hear this a lot, in terms of older tools being considered obsolete. Other than the natural human tendency towards novelty and the network effects, what, exactly, is obsolete about mailing lists or IRC? What features are missing in IRC that Slack has for synchronous discussion? (I'll start: animated dancing pigs out of the box and the need to write/plug in your own archiver.) What limitations do ma…
The problems with mailing lists?
Quoting is still a problem. Most answer above. Some below. Many nitpick in between.
Threading is easily broken. Especially if Outlook users are involved.
Formatting is an issue. There is no markdown or whatever for links. Some people insist on line lengths and other stuff.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The real advantage of slack isn't even client its stuff like massive logging for e-discovery and single sign on integration. Admittedly not terribly appealing for FOSS but once you use it at work... Which can also be done with IRC clients. This is a video of a search system I built for the Quassel IRC client: https://dl.kuschku.de/videos/2016-09-16_04-03-36.mp4 Quassel is a distributed system, so you have a bouncer…
"log in to slack" vs. "deploy 3 services in the cloud by yourself and force everyone to use a specific irc client (good luck)" There's a reason people like slack so much. It does a ton of stuff out of the box with no headaches. Nobody wants to maintain all that stuff.
> There's a reason people like slack so much. It does a ton of stuff out of the box with no headaches. Nobody wants to maintain all that stuff.
So instead of paying someone to maintain it, you pay someone to maintain it who keeps all your data from you and prevents you from accessing it, and who admits he’ll read all your stuff.
How is that better again?
That said, IRCCloud already does it for free, in the cloud, just works™, and the Quassel people are also working on improving ease of use and deployment.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#125Forums. I don't know why the internet got tired of them, even when they sometimes fit the bill so well. Slack is chat. Mailing lists are far too outdated. Forums are good, and some good people out there are still developing them.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slack chat provides a number of nice features that IRC (at least out of the box... I know there have been attempts) does not. IRCCloud at least lets you see chat history, which IRC doesn't have out of the box but Slack does.
There's also TheLounge and ircanywhere which try to be FOSS IRCCloud
Eh, no, if you want to get a FLOSS product comparable to IRCCloud, Quassel + Quassel-Webserver are more appropriate comparisons.
TheLounge and ircanywhere are missing a lot in comparison.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#127Good points but the bigger problem for me is the lack of an archive. You only have the last 10k (?) messages and that includes public and private messages. If you have a mildly active project, messages may only be available for a month and you lose the history of the project. That makes it an awful support option too.
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Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#128I feel like more and more people are coming around to seeing the relevancy of distributed federated chat and breaking out of the walled gardens. My person money is on Matrix[0] taking off but I think the general theme of people pulling away from interesting their communication to corporations is a positive. [0] matrix.org
Everyone should be using Matrix. Not just open source developers. It's near feature parity with Slack and it's also one of the best IRC clients around. I used to run ERC in a tmux session just so I could stay connected and not lose messages. No more.
Yes, Matrix has great momentum. It is somewhat sad that XMPP is falling behind. There is no technical reason, why Matrix should be superior, but they are winning.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't even bother logging out, ever. I just have them open in different tabs. Imagine having about 7 tabs open. By the time I'm finished with the last tab, something new has come up on the first tab I checked. Huge waste of time. I'm trying to wean myself from all these services, but it's not easy. This or that project is on GitHub, but join the developers on Slack. And I hate Slack.
I turned all of my notifications off and use Pomodoro timers. If it really can't wait <25 minutes, they can call me or come to my desk. It's amazing how many things aren't "immediate" if you create a slight cost with requesting attention.
This is exactly what I do! I find it very simple and effective. I set mine for 60 minutes. It really helps focus. 60 minutes is about as long as I can focus without a break anyway.
Re: Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications
#130Good points but the bigger problem for me is the lack of an archive. You only have the last 10k (?) messages and that includes public and private messages. If you have a mildly active project, messages may only be available for a month and you lose the history of the project. That makes it an awful support option too.
Well, some of the open communities are using http://slackarchive.io/
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