adblock blocker on wired, so upset
I just ship the articles to instapaper
Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
151–160 of 397 posts
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you plan on open sourcing plugs or any parts of your system?
You can see what happens to OS projects that work with WhatsApp, Skype, and some of the other heavily guarded walled gardens -- cease & desist orders, carried out by GitHub. We have absolutely no interest in joining that list, which unfortunately means the answer - for the time being - is no :(
[deleted]
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can see what happens to OS projects that work with WhatsApp, Skype, and some of the other heavily guarded walled gardens -- cease & desist orders, carried out by GitHub. We have absolutely no interest in joining that list, which unfortunately means the answer - for the time being - is no :(
Right, but surely if you're selling it that's much more incentive for a cease and a desist (regardless of whether it is free software).
Actually I don't think so. The main thing the owners of big networks are afraid of is spam.
We provide a ridiculously expensive way to connect, say, Slack to Skype, which is ==great for Skype==, from almost every possible angle. It means Skype users can stay on Skype instead of switching to someone else's Slack team.
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not even that great of an article, and yet it's the top post on HN? I hope at least dang looks at the data. I'm sorry it's pretty suspicious. Like what is so notable about this post that it warrants being at the top? Above the living social layoffs and the various other way more interesting things on the front page right now. Worst case, it turns out being a legit article, in which case it's cool. Eh, no big dea…
If you're worried about the upvotes on the article, they're definitely legit (as far as we can tell). I suspect it's as simple as that Slack is a hot topic (for or against) and people here like open source. And are passionate about chat software.
Thanks dang!
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#155Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#156Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#157We need open protocols. Then let a thousand clients with different paradigms bloom
For reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, chat has been reinvented more times than perhaps any other common Internet utility, and every time it is, there are no shortage of investors lined up for it. I think the cycle is largely driven by fashion, as youth get online and demand chat apps that are distinct (if not different in any meaningful functional way) from the existing ones.
Yes, I have thought about that as well many times. AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, WhatsApp, WeChat, iMessage…
Perhaps because the hard part of creating an online chat is the network effect and scaling, everyone thinks they can have shot. With so many being thrown at the wall, eventually a lot of them stick.
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#158A hundred different chat systems mentioned here. None of them compatible with one another. Well, I guess a couple of them have IRC gateways, but you have to actually set those up. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose your UI? Pick and choose your "integrations", your "plugins", your client, etc without having to lose your entire userbase, history, contacts? Some sort of open protocol. Urgh, I've been…
IRC Cloud is based on IRC:
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's Slack's main feature. Well that and gifs. IRC on the other hand is James has left the channel. Bill has left the channel. Samantha has joined the channel. Samantha has left the channel. filled with worthless status updates Martha has gone idle that make it Bill has joined the channel. terribly easy to Bill has changed the channel topic to "ZOMG! Ponies!" miss things Martha has become active Martha has left the…
You can turn all of those notices off; I've not seen those sorts of updates in channel for years & years.
True, but most clients have it on by default.
Also on public IRC you tend to have a channels of 80 people, all idle.
Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being build in HTML and being a webapp are very different things. I don't think rendering HTML is significantly worse than rendering some "native" UI kit. If it's not loading pages from the internet, which I'm sure Slack doesn't, than the experience should be pretty much the same.
On OS X, Adium, Textual and Colloquy are predominantly built in HTML. It's hardly groundbreaking.
This is a good point. I'm not opposed to using HTML in an app. Back in the early 00's, I did a decent bit of tweaking my Adium conversation display style. It's useful for displaying that kind of content easily.
But there's a difference between saying "I put a webview in my app" and "I put my whole app in a webview". Driving the whole thing from HTML/JS tends to have bad implications for:
• Performance (laggy animation, excessive CPU use, more drain on battery)
• Window management (everything in one box! Modal overlays! Window management is overrated, nobody uses Exposé or multiple windows of one app anyway)
• and UI consistency (some popup menus look one way, right click and every other popup menu on the computer looks another way)
Adium, Textual, and Colloquy use HTML to display things, but they don't try and shove the whole damn app in it.