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Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

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Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#371

Post by MattJ100 »

creshal wrote: post #351
pyre wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, extending the spec could be the solution too. What I was trying to convey was more that there will be a lack of such clients until there is either an agreed-upon extension to the standard, or a popular enough fork of the standard. (at least as far as XMPP is concerned)

There is an XMPP extension for it: http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0136.html The problem is, there are far too damn many XMPP extensions and too few of them see any kind of real adoption.

XEP-0136 was pretty complex, and didn't see that much adoption.

XEP-0313 is a modern replacement, focusing on just the things that people actually need. It's implemented in many servers and clients already (see https://www.zash.se/mam.html ). It's still under development, but it's already in active use by many people.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#372

Post by vannevar »

beachy wrote: post #98
vannevar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps because "chat" is the oldest human activity there is, so the idea that chat will ever be "done" is a chimera.

If the medium is the message, then yes. A chat on ICQ is different from a chat on WhatsApp, because the app itself is part of the tribal identity. Like slang for existing words. So even if the functionality stays identical (and I would argue that it has, there's only so much you can do with a chat app), the cultural context of the app is different.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#373

Post by ZenoArrow »

moonshinefe wrote: post #320
supergeek133 wrote: post #168

Oh man this entire field is madness... especially when you realize this when trying to get ahold of someone: I'll try Slack... let me check Skype... no maybe they're on HipChat... SMS... oh hell I'll just call them!

Yes it is fairly ridiculous. Which is why an open protocol / non-closed environment would help solve this. Yeah, IRC is from the 80s and is lacking some modern features, but at least it was a fairly unifying chat system in its day. No one company owned it, most people could use it trivially, and there were many different clients out there to suite one's taste. There's still a market for wrapping a protocol in a nice…

> "Can't different chat services communicate with each other easily, without the need for a bridge?"

If more chat services supported Matrix.org we could get there.

http://matrix.org

https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html#clients

Someone's suggested it in the Mattermost suggestions site:

https://mattermost.uservoice.com/forums/306457-general/sugge...

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#374

Post by teekert »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #364
teekert wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to a non-techy, running a messaging server is just as out of reach as running a mail server. It's just too difficult.

Lots easier than before. Off the top of my head: 1: You have more than enough 'power users' who keep their machines on 24/7 for torrent seeding. VirtualBox is free & those guys are fairly security conscious as a result of the inherent defensive nature of torrenting (MPAA litigation, etc). Give them a VBox server they can run and they'd happily do it. Now grandma can use his server no problem, in the same way that you…

That is oversimplifying, for example what happens when Microsoft seems to make your email to your brother in-law disappear and they tell you they have no control over their spam filters? Or when you sent out birthday invites and every Yahoo user you know presents you with an automated message that your server has been banned forever from sending them mail? So you set out to get SPF records, get DKIM working, get certs... and it doesn't help.

Also, running torrents is different from getting all the DNS set up and forwarding all the ports. And even then, where I live, out of the 10 or so fiber providers I can choose, I know that only 2 allow me to do anything with port 25.

It can be a Pita.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#375

Post by Karunamon »

chris_wot wrote: post #354
Karunamon wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because such comments are at this point inane and uninteresting. As has been mentioned ad nauseum, Slack and friends are winning because IRC is a pain and lacks really basic creature comforts like offline messages and anything but text. I'm downvoting them as I see them for this reason. Anyone saying "Why not IRC?" to the question of "Slack alternative?" is being willfully ignorant at this point. Same goes to those w…

Only as inane and uninteresting as the comment you just posted. You can't impute motives why someone might ask that question. You may feel it has been repeated ad nauseum but it's quite possible those asking the question haven't read the previous HN comments. At this point, you come over as an arrogant jerk.

Ask a silly question...

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#376

Post by ldarby »

rekoros wrote: post #107
scrollaway wrote: post #78

A 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…

Here's a timeline we put together of about 60 incompatible chat services: https://cdn.sameroom.io/chat-timeline.pdf Our service Sameroom ( https://sameroom.io ) is a commercial solution to the chat incompatibility disaster, not too different from an AC adapter thingy with a bunch of different plugs, one or two per continent. After implementing the protocols of quite a number of these systems (~20), we're seeing a sca…

That PDF suggests Zulip died after being acquired by Dropbox, but that's not the case, they opensourced it: zulip.org

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#377

Post by goffi »

chei0aiV wrote: post #326
scrollaway wrote: post #78

A 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…

I think Telepathy was ahead of its time. Shame it didn't get much adoption outside of Nokia and is now on life-support: http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/

You may want to check http://salut-a-toi.org/ then (I'm working on it), we have a similar architecture and it's a very active project, XMPP only though.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#378

Post by luckydude »

mmel wrote: post #291
luckydude wrote: post #242

This is why I sort of hate open source. Slack is doing a great job, their prices are right. So why is it OK to destroy that? With what is going to be not as good stuff? I'll get down voted to hell but come on. It's cheap, it's good, so why not let the guy make a living? And for the record I don't even know who the guy is (or woman is). I just hate the "it's cool, lets rip it off attitude". Because the ripoff is rarel…

Do you really hate open source? or is that just an exaggeration? I find it hard to believe anyone could actually hate open source.

Nah, I use open source every day, I've contributed to it.

I just don't like that as soon as something becomes popular then it's a target. It's always bothered me that open source seems to copy more than innovate. I'm sure there are open source projects that invented something new but it's hard to think of them (for me at least). But I can think of zillions of copies of closed source things (linux, gcc, etc).

In the case of slack, it seems sort of mean spirited to try and clone it. They give it away for free for most people and charge for some sort of extra functionality and it's cheap, $7 or $8/month/person. I can understand something like Postgres, Oracle is expensive and cumbersome. But slack? Really?

For the record I have no connection to the slack people, don't know them other than what I've read in the press.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#379

Post by rekoros »

ldarby wrote: post #376
rekoros wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a timeline we put together of about 60 incompatible chat services: https://cdn.sameroom.io/chat-timeline.pdf Our service Sameroom ( https://sameroom.io ) is a commercial solution to the chat incompatibility disaster, not too different from an AC adapter thingy with a bunch of different plugs, one or two per continent. After implementing the protocols of quite a number of these systems (~20), we're seeing a sca…

That PDF suggests Zulip died after being acquired by Dropbox, but that's not the case, they opensourced it: zulip.org

We decided to only include cloud services, so we weren't sure what to do with something you have to run yourself. That said, the line is blurry, we will fix.

Re: Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack

#380

Post by yarrel »

klint wrote: post #183
navait wrote: post #36

For talking about a race, Wired seems to have neglected a crucial technology: ircv3[1]. I'm not very fond of IRCv2, and have moved away from it where I previously used IRC. But IRC is popular, has a lot of clients, and v3 has a lot of promise. Why didn't the author bother to mention it? [1]: http://ircv3.net/

Hi, I wrote the Wired article in question. I hadn't heard about IRCv3, but it does sound like it would plug some of the holes in IRC that Slack users complain about. It wouldn't really have been a good fit for this article, since I was mostly focused on the two Slack-alikes with most traction, at least according to Black Duck's data (an imperfect measure to be sure) and IRCv3. As for why I didn't mention IRC in gener…

> Black Duck

Black Duck are not any kind of neutral source in free software matters.

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