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There are many IRC servers. IRC daemons are available as free software that anyone can run. Freenode is not particularly problematic. It is an organization o

There are many IRC servers. IRC daemons are available as free software that anyone can run. Freenode is not particularly problematic. It is an organization of servers run by a community, not a company. By asking someone to login to Freenode I do not entice them to use proprietary software like I would if I asked them to use Slack.

mikeash 11y ago
I don't understand this "entice" business. The natural way to use Slack is to use it in a web browser, which could easily be an open source web browser. And there are many closed-source IRC clients. I'm no fan of Slack, but I don't get the claimed conflict when using it with an open source project. Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub, or the web site on IIS?
- davexunit 11y ago
  >The natural way to use Slack is to use it in a web browser, which could easily be an open source web browser. The web browser may be free, but all of the JavaScript you are running is proprietary. >And there are many closed-source IRC clients. But there are many free ones, and there isn't an official client that is proprietary. It's possible to use Slack, more or less, over IRC or XMPP, but they are second-class citizens. The recommended way to use Slack is via their proprietary web interface.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I don't think I've seen anyone worried about running proprietary JavaScript in a browser before. I suppose that's consistent, but I don't know how many would agree with it. The utility of a web browser is deeply limited if you only use it to run open source code. As I already asked, do you also advocate against hosting the code on GitHub? That seems like the same problem.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    The source of the JavaScript is open by virtue of being an interpreted language, and as such it can be edited and modified by the end user.
    - davexunit 11y ago
      This is absolutely not true! The "source" is often minified JavaScript code, which is not the source code. In legal terms, it is a binary. It's a build artifact, the output of a program, not a human. Source code is the preferred form of modifying a program. The developers of a web application certainly don't use this form of their program when hacking on it. Giving someone a concatenated, minified version of a JavaScript web application is not giving them software freedom. And even if the JavaScript files were not minified, they likely aren't available for user modification and redistribution because they are protected by copyright and a license that says "all rights reserved."
- adrusi 11y ago
  When you use Slack, you don't "use it in a web browser", you use the (proprietary) software, delivered by Slack Technologies, which happens to run in a web browser. The fact that the web browser is itself free software is as irrelevant as the fact that the kernel and user-space services supporting skype on linux/bsd systems are open source. The actual software, everything that actually relates to the task at hand (group communication), is non-free. Actually it's not completely irrelevant, as the fact that the host platform of proprietary software is free software has value in the security-based argument in favor of free software, but that's only tangential to the topic at hand. Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub Not necessarily, if really all you're using github for is hosting, then there's nothing wrong. That is, if you don't use their issues/PR system or other auxiliary services. This is how, for example, the linux project uses github. In this case, all that you're asking people to do is use git (free software) to download some stuff from servers owned by Github, Inc. Running the website on IIS is fine though; this imposes absolutely nothing on your users or contributors.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    But just visiting the project page on GitHub downloads and executes proprietary JavaScript. If that's a problem for Slack, why isn't it a problem for GitHub?
    - davexunit 11y ago
      GitHub's proprietary JavaScript is a problem, amongst others.
    - adrusi 11y ago
      You don't have to visit Github's web ui at all if you're just using it as repository hosting. At least users and contributors don't have to, the maintainer needs to occaisionally for configuration reasons. Also it's worth noting that github's entire UI, at least for browsing (I didn't try creating an issue or editing a file), works just fine with javascript disabled.
      - 11y ago
- PuercoPop 11y ago
  > Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub. Some Free Software people certainly think that. It is imho at least problematic. For example, the unicorn web server developer, finds github problematic from the 'UX' side in addition to dependence on proprietary software and infrastructure (which creeps into the commit messages). "Contributing to unicorn is socially as easy as contributing to git or the Linux kernel. There is no need to signup for anything, no need to ever touch a bloated web browser."[0] [0]:http://bogomips.org/unicorn-public/20140801213202.GA2729%40dcvr.yhbt.net/ http://bogomips.org/unicorn-public/20140801213202.GA2729%40d...

mikeash 11y ago

I don't understand this "entice" business. The natural way to use Slack is to use it in a web browser, which could easily be an open source web browser. And there are many closed-source IRC clients. I'm no fan of Slack, but I don't get the claimed conflict when using it with an open source project. Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub, or the web site on IIS?

davexunit 11y ago
>The natural way to use Slack is to use it in a web browser, which could easily be an open source web browser. The web browser may be free, but all of the JavaScript you are running is proprietary. >And there are many closed-source IRC clients. But there are many free ones, and there isn't an official client that is proprietary. It's possible to use Slack, more or less, over IRC or XMPP, but they are second-class citizens. The recommended way to use Slack is via their proprietary web interface.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I don't think I've seen anyone worried about running proprietary JavaScript in a browser before. I suppose that's consistent, but I don't know how many would agree with it. The utility of a web browser is deeply limited if you only use it to run open source code. As I already asked, do you also advocate against hosting the code on GitHub? That seems like the same problem.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  The source of the JavaScript is open by virtue of being an interpreted language, and as such it can be edited and modified by the end user.
  - davexunit 11y ago
    This is absolutely not true! The "source" is often minified JavaScript code, which is not the source code. In legal terms, it is a binary. It's a build artifact, the output of a program, not a human. Source code is the preferred form of modifying a program. The developers of a web application certainly don't use this form of their program when hacking on it. Giving someone a concatenated, minified version of a JavaScript web application is not giving them software freedom. And even if the JavaScript files were not minified, they likely aren't available for user modification and redistribution because they are protected by copyright and a license that says "all rights reserved."
adrusi 11y ago
When you use Slack, you don't "use it in a web browser", you use the (proprietary) software, delivered by Slack Technologies, which happens to run in a web browser. The fact that the web browser is itself free software is as irrelevant as the fact that the kernel and user-space services supporting skype on linux/bsd systems are open source. The actual software, everything that actually relates to the task at hand (group communication), is non-free. Actually it's not completely irrelevant, as the fact that the host platform of proprietary software is free software has value in the security-based argument in favor of free software, but that's only tangential to the topic at hand. Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub Not necessarily, if really all you're using github for is hosting, then there's nothing wrong. That is, if you don't use their issues/PR system or other auxiliary services. This is how, for example, the linux project uses github. In this case, all that you're asking people to do is use git (free software) to download some stuff from servers owned by Github, Inc. Running the website on IIS is fine though; this imposes absolutely nothing on your users or contributors.
- mikeash 11y ago
  But just visiting the project page on GitHub downloads and executes proprietary JavaScript. If that's a problem for Slack, why isn't it a problem for GitHub?
  - davexunit 11y ago
    GitHub's proprietary JavaScript is a problem, amongst others.
  - adrusi 11y ago
    You don't have to visit Github's web ui at all if you're just using it as repository hosting. At least users and contributors don't have to, the maintainer needs to occaisionally for configuration reasons. Also it's worth noting that github's entire UI, at least for browsing (I didn't try creating an issue or editing a file), works just fine with javascript disabled.
    - 11y ago
PuercoPop 11y ago
> Would it also be bad to host the project's source code on GitHub. Some Free Software people certainly think that. It is imho at least problematic. For example, the unicorn web server developer, finds github problematic from the 'UX' side in addition to dependence on proprietary software and infrastructure (which creeps into the commit messages). "Contributing to unicorn is socially as easy as contributing to git or the Linux kernel. There is no need to signup for anything, no need to ever touch a bloated web browser."[0] [0]:http://bogomips.org/unicorn-public/20140801213202.GA2729%40dcvr.yhbt.net/ http://bogomips.org/unicorn-public/20140801213202.GA2729%40d...