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Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

zulip.org

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Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#71

Post by tmslnz »

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.

One could say that OS-level notifications could be considered a crude replacement of an aggregation tool like Trillian. We didn't have these back in the ICQ days and today it's easier (read: less painful) to listen on multiple messaging apps. Especially on mobile devices.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#72

Post by scrollaway »

chc wrote: post #62
scrollaway wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very short sighted view. There is a real need for an alternative to IRC - and closed source products do not cut it when we are talking about communication. What parent is talking about is a real problem. There's micro-ecosystems out there around specific closed source products, all of them centralized, none of them compatible... and in the mean time, the only real decentralized, open source group chat solut…

As noted in the OP, Zulip is not a closed-source product anymore. But I'm not sure that really helps so much with the immediate problem, since it's more the proliferation of protocols rather than the scarcity of source that causes issues.

Yes, that's the title of the thread, you can assume I read that far at least ;) I'll give you I wasn't very clear.

I'm super excited Zulip is going open source. And it's both the proliferation of protocols and the closed-sourceness(?) of the products that is problematic.

Open source has two coupled benefits:

1. If the product becomes popular, it's easy to integrate with it, extend it, modify it, etc rather than just write an alternative from the ground up. This prevents the proliferation of new protocols just for the sake of an alternative. Right now, it makes no sense for me to go and build a FOSS alternative to Zulip. It would've made sense a few weeks ago. FOSS web services encourage/promote self-hosting. This also counts for something.

2. When extending a foss product, writing a gateway is a lot easier. Gateways don't slow down proliferation as much, but they do keep protocols somewhat close to one another and make it easier for users to migrate from one another. For example: It's been several years now and there is still no reliable open source XMPP-to-Hangouts gateway. But a Zulip/IRC gateway? If one doesn't exist already, I bet you there'll be one within weeks.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#74

Post by bad_user »

hanley wrote: post #27
SwellJoe wrote: post #10

I was just about to try out Mattermost for our company communications. It integrates with a few things including gitlab, but Zulip seems to have a larger number of integration options, which is awesome. Anybody tried both and have thoughts on them? I still prefer to host my own infrastructure, and I want to be able to archive and categorize a discussion (after it's happened) for searchability, but a couple of our peo…

HipChat supports XMPP [0], and you can host it yourself. Not sure about the guy that "doesn't do chat", he might be out of luck. Time to adapt. [0] https://confluence.atlassian.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageI...

HipChat supports XMPP clients, but not federation, which is the interesting part of XMPP.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#76

Post by MichaelGG »

parfe wrote: post #50
dingdingdang wrote: post #11

Would be really interesting if one could program a secure way for the individually hosted servers to hook up with each other and verify the correctness of one another while at the same time keeping the messages secure (I guess bitcoins come to mind here..). Up until something like this happens I guess centralized social networks are going to rule the roost since the value of networks is almost always in their reach/s…

Why would reinventing jabber federation require bitcoin?

To prevent the spam issues that made federation useless?

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#77

Post by TillE »

tbingmann wrote: post #63
JoshM33k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Best ask them first via email.

I don't even know my girlfriend's email address. I'm 30, and she's only a few years younger. The world is strange now.

I miss Google Wave. Not the messy implementation, but the promise of a big influential company throwing its weight behind a modern, open communication protocol.

Re: Dropbox has open-sourced Zulip

#79

Post by jfb »

BradRuderman wrote: post #55
obrajesse wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got the team behind it, who now work on other parts of Dropobox

Right by why maintain the chat app? Why not just buy slack.

Slack is out for a lot of groups that don't particularly want internal, private communications routed through a third-party.
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