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Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

zulip.org

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Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#231

Post by [deleted] »

ara4n wrote: post #225
tbingmann wrote: post #8

Slack, Zulip, this feels like we are back in 1999, when the internet was divided by ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger, Windows Live Messanger, and Yahoo Messanger. (Instant/Live was a plus back then). And the only innovation over IRC was a backlog and buddy list. I wonder when the Trillian of Slack+Zulip will come out. I hope Trillian (which still exists) is already working on it.

This is precisely the problem we're working on with Matrix.org - providing a standard API that can be used to bridge together all of these different protocols in one decentralised model. It's better than Trillian in that the defragmentation happens serverside and you can use any compatible client with it (or one of the existing services if you prefer). For instance, we turned on our first Matrix Slack bridge this wee…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#232

Post by ara4n »

scrollaway wrote: post #111
vbezhenar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://matrix.org is a promising candidate.

I remember reading about matrix when they first announced. Was pretty excited about it, haven't heard anything since. I It's just tech though; even if it's mind-blowingly great, won't do much good if no large-scale userbase picks it up somehow.

We're still alive and going strong - currently supporting glossy client development like Vector.im and building out bridges to as many other networks as possible (IRC, Slack, HipChat etc) using http://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-bridge and similar. In terms of being picked up by a large user base... yes, we need it if we are to be really relevant. And that means relying on folks like those commenting on this thread to try using it, contributing to it, and help us make it better.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#233

Post by scrollaway »

ara4n wrote: post #232
scrollaway wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading about matrix when they first announced. Was pretty excited about it, haven't heard anything since. I It's just tech though; even if it's mind-blowingly great, won't do much good if no large-scale userbase picks it up somehow.

We're still alive and going strong - currently supporting glossy client development like Vector.im and building out bridges to as many other networks as possible (IRC, Slack, HipChat etc) using http://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-bridge and similar. In terms of being picked up by a large user base... yes, we need it if we are to be really relevant. And that means relying on folks like those commenting on t…

Well I'll do my part on mindshare, I do like what I see :)

Maybe you guys should do another Show HN.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#234

Post by hobarrera »

kevinr wrote: post #149

We've been using Zulip internally for a couple of years now. We've used IRC and Jabber, looked at Slack and Hipchat and Skype and Lync, and somehow keep coming back to Zulip. It lets us have real, ongoing, and substantive conversations, with a large number of participants, without being overwhelmed. I sometimes feel like Twitter is actually a better comparison for Zulip than Slack---in Zulip like on Twitter, it's eas…

There's something that quite surprised me: being a software company: how is it that you've never gotten around to a Linux client? Do most of you use the web-version, or is dropbox mostly windows-centric (sorry, I'm quite ignorant about dropbox team's culture. :D )

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#235

Post by scrollaway »

mikekchar wrote: post #204
scrollaway wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack and IRC are room-based, semi-synchronous, topic-centered communication protocols with support for direct messaging. Slack literally took the concept of IRC and put a bunch of cool bells and whistles on it. They updated it, centralized it and sold the idea as an enterprise solution. It works great, and the tech could be a kickass replacement to IRC, done correctly.

I don't really disagree with you... but I often wonder how much Slack actually adds to IRC. We use it at work (and as a 100% remote person in a mostly co-located team, it is a godsend). I can't really think of anything in Slack that wouldn't be easy to implement with IRC bots. Persistent history is easy. Email notification is easy. Storage of various assets like text snippets and pictures is easy. I've never used any…

I've wondered the same. Like you said, though, there is value in packaging useful features together.

IRC is "You could do that ...", while Slack is "You can do that". So like you're saying, you could set up a bunch of channel bots (And for what it's worth, I think channel bots are fairly ugly. If I say "Let's work on #133", I want #133 to be linked, I don't want a different user spewing 3 lines of noise and a long link). But most people won't do that because it's too much of a hassle. So most of IRC does not showcase what's really possible.

Like I mentioned in the g+ rant I linked above, it'd be possible to improve this by adding scripting features and such to IRC servers. But nobody's doing that. The harsh reality is that "could" is a long, long way from "can".

> To be honest, I would really rather be using free software.

Me too, man. Me too. I don't use Slack out of principle, and I'm a heavy IRC user. Sadly it doesn't often compare :/

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#236

Post by hobarrera »

tbingmann wrote: post #8

Slack, Zulip, this feels like we are back in 1999, when the internet was divided by ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger, Windows Live Messanger, and Yahoo Messanger. (Instant/Live was a plus back then). And the only innovation over IRC was a backlog and buddy list. I wonder when the Trillian of Slack+Zulip will come out. I hope Trillian (which still exists) is already working on it.

Yup, it's a big shame. XMPP promised for quite a while, but then stagnated and failed to deliver what most users were expecting (mostly due to implementations, not lack of protocol features).

I've recently given up on IM, and written about it recently:

https://hugo.barrera.io/journal/2015/09/21/giving-up-on-im/

If only zulip were federated. :(

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#237

Post by hobarrera »

JoshM33k wrote: post #56
tbingmann wrote: post #8

Slack, Zulip, this feels like we are back in 1999, when the internet was divided by ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger, Windows Live Messanger, and Yahoo Messanger. (Instant/Live was a plus back then). And the only innovation over IRC was a backlog and buddy list. I wonder when the Trillian of Slack+Zulip will come out. I hope Trillian (which still exists) is already working on it.

Those types of fragmentation issues never went away, they just changed focus. Whether it is Slack vs. Hipchat vs. Zulip, or WhatsApp vs. iMessage vs. text vs. Hangouts... more options means more (and easier!) ways to contact friends, family, and coworkers, but also means that you have to memorize a "best way to reach me" chart for each individual person.

At some point it did fade a bit. About 2-3 years ago enough people were using XMPP/Gtalk so that I could reach about 80% of my acquaintances thought it.

Now, there's no single network that holds over 25% of them. Except facebook, but most of them don't actively use facebook every day, nor pay attention to it's IM.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#239

Post by kybernetikos »

hobarrera wrote: post #236
tbingmann wrote: post #8

Slack, Zulip, this feels like we are back in 1999, when the internet was divided by ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger, Windows Live Messanger, and Yahoo Messanger. (Instant/Live was a plus back then). And the only innovation over IRC was a backlog and buddy list. I wonder when the Trillian of Slack+Zulip will come out. I hope Trillian (which still exists) is already working on it.

Yup, it's a big shame. XMPP promised for quite a while, but then stagnated and failed to deliver what most users were expecting (mostly due to implementations, not lack of protocol features). I've recently given up on IM, and written about it recently: https://hugo.barrera.io/journal/2015/09/21/giving-up-on-im/ If only zulip were federated. :(

> If only zulip were federated. :(

Now that it's open source, could it be made to be federated?

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#240

Post by hobarrera »

ex3ndr wrote: post #119
tbingmann wrote: post #8

Slack, Zulip, this feels like we are back in 1999, when the internet was divided by ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger, Windows Live Messanger, and Yahoo Messanger. (Instant/Live was a plus back then). And the only innovation over IRC was a backlog and buddy list. I wonder when the Trillian of Slack+Zulip will come out. I hope Trillian (which still exists) is already working on it.

We ( https://actor.im ) are actually working on this, but not trying to connect slack, but building telegram, skype, whatsapp, social networks to one, slack like interface that will help you easily manage communications from many networks. This is not our main feature, just something like side project.

"Mobile First"

This is the regrettable de-facto standard. I'd like to see the opposite: a network that provides native desktop clients. Telegram seems to be the only one taking this seriously up to now.

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