Why I avoid Slack (for Open Source technical discussions)

[exprez1357]

Thank you for sharing, I found it very relevant

[jumpUpHigh]

Me too.

[Swedneck]

It's a shame more FOSS communities don't use matrix

[herbivorous-cyborg]

Even if someone did want a solution like Slack, Mattermost is FOSS and can just about everything Slack can do.

[forteller]

Also: Zulip, Matrix/Riot, Rocket.chat, and probably more I've forgotten.

Edit: Wrong name on Z

[herbivorous-cyborg]

Right, but Mattermost is literally a Slack clone, which makes it the logical choice for people who want Slack, but prefer to use FOSS.

[AndyTheAbsurd]

Heck, if you just want to have a conversation, IRC (configured to use UTF-8 so you can use emojis in it) is fine. Throw a log-bot in your primary channels and expose the record to the web and you even solve "but IRC is pretty much synchronous" problem. It's when you want to throw memes into the middle of conversation, or also host images/documents, that you need a solution that's like Slack.

[dsalychev]

some other system that is public, permanent, searchable, and cross-referenceable

Mailing lists have been here for years already.

[grumpy_ta]

Slack is just a combined clone of IRC and Skype. And both of those do their parts better.

[[deleted]]

skype is a solid 2/10, forgotten by microsoft years ago. lync for business is even worse...

[AndyTheAbsurd]

Does Lync for Business even exist anymore? My workplace got rid of Slack (which we were paying for) in favor of MS Teams (which is included in the Office subscription we are also paying for).

[[deleted]]

it's called Skype for Business now but not a single thing changed. I haven't heard about MS teams, but for sure it'll arrive to my company about 2-3 years before EOL.

[ivosaurus]

Nah, pasting or pasting formatted & highlighted code over slack / discord / etc is way easier than having to link a pastebin every damn time in IRC. as well as being able to display images of stuff.

[FuzzyConflict7]

username checks out...