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Anyone else find it a bit ironic (?) that they say "an open platform is essential" but haven't open sourced their core code base? That feels like a bit of a mis

Anyone else find it a bit ironic (?) that they say "an open platform is essential" but haven't open sourced their core code base? That feels like a bit of a misstep to me.

vvanders 10y ago
Totally, the lack of self-hosting/open platform with Slack just might be their mis-step that cuts off their growth.
- yoz-y 10y ago
  I though their growth was just fine. I think the fact that you do not need to host it yourself is a force and it also lets them concentrate on exactly one product. I can imagine that providing a supported on premises platform must increase your support team size considerably.
  - it33 10y ago
    From what we've seen at Mattermost (open source Slack-alternative, https://mattermost.com/ https://mattermost.com/) supporting on-premises deployments with an open source community is actually pretty awesome. We have over a thousand people on our forums helping each other out, people are building installers for Mattermost in Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Docker, etc. (just web search to find them). We're also getting help writing and updating our deployment docs (https://docs.mattermost.com/ https://docs.mattermost.com/).
mythz 10y ago
They're referring to an open 3rd Party API platform - not giving away their secret sauce.
- Touche 10y ago
  Can you explain the difference between an open and a closed 3rd party API?
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    I guess here the split is between a closed source 3rd party API and no API at all.
  - daveFNbuck 10y ago
    To develop an app using the Slack API, you do not need to register with Slack and download an API key for your app. Anyone can just develop whatever they like without having to ask permission first and there's no easy way to selectively shut down apps that Slack doesn't like.
- RandomOpinion 10y ago
  Slack is a chat application, one of a vast multitude. There's not all that much secret sauce to give away.
  - azinman2 10y ago
    Their secret sauce seems to be in how they can convince so many people to use it despite similar products existing for decades. I really wish I knew the answer to this question, I admire it a lot.
    - ericclemmons 10y ago
      The UX is top notch. Not only is the UI polished, but big details like mentioning someone and an invite link appearing is awesome. Or force-pinging someone on DnD because of an emergency. Slack is seriously user-centric, all the way down to how they run their Twitter.
      - flukus 10y ago
        Have you used it on an under powered laptop? It's dog slow and gets exponentially worse the longer you have it open. Don't even thinking about scrolling back through the history.
      - azinman2 10y ago
        They didn't start with all that, but somehow amassed a lot of users anyway. I believe it's more about the personal networks of the original team, but that's just a guess.
- kqia040 10y ago
  Well, what deep secrets could a chatapp possibly have thats unreplicable.
- saurik 10y ago
  Providing APIs for third-party integration is what Microsoft is almost too good at (hence why Word and Excel are so scarey). The idea that Slack would be so dumb as to believe that Microsoft will do poorly at this is shocking.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Indeed. Slack thinks they're an "open platform" because they have an "open API" that lets people contribute more data to their closed silo.
thejosh 10y ago
Slack really needs to gift open source projects with a large userbase who use Slack 100% free, with the catch being no private rooms or something, fully web searchable.
- mugsie 10y ago
  Slack has said they do not want open source projects to use it. It is the single most annoying thing about some projects - I get it, IRC doesn't show your emojis, but it just works.
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    I remember an article about not using slack for FOSS projects, but it was not from Slack. Would you happen to have a link for your claim? I would be quite interested why they would not want to be used by somebody. That being said I do believe that Slack is a poor choice of medium for a free project, mainly because of the limited history and no publicly searchable transcripts.
    - mugsie 10y ago
      And the fact that it costs them a fair amount of money to host large instances of slack. Can't seem to find the link, but you can see they will give discounts for non profits, up to 250 users. - https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/204368833 https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/204368833 Its a poor medium, as it locks projects into a walled garden ecosystem.
  - thejosh 10y ago
    Yeah, I wish they didn't either, but certain projects are mainly slack it seems. I hate it so much for this purpose. I guess I'm also apart of the problem. :P Come back to IRC, FOSS!
    - mugsie 10y ago
      yeah - i do work on 2 projects right now, one on freenode, one on slack. guess which one I look at regularly?
m3rc 10y ago
"ironic" is one word for it, "hypocritical" also came to mind, along with "shameless lying" and "disgustingly misleading"
ff10 10y ago
(I did an CMD-F and searched for mattermost, nothing found.)
Arnt 10y ago
I've written stuff to send notifications to slack channels and to XMPP. Slack was distinctly easier, so IMO they have a decent argument that Slack's more open than XMPP. (You might consider other aspects of openness more important, of course.)

Anyone else find it a bit ironic (?) that they say "an open platform is essential" but haven't open sourced their core code base? That feels like a bit of a misstep to me.

vvanders 10y ago

Totally, the lack of self-hosting/open platform with Slack just might be their mis-step that cuts off their growth.

yoz-y 10y ago
I though their growth was just fine. I think the fact that you do not need to host it yourself is a force and it also lets them concentrate on exactly one product. I can imagine that providing a supported on premises platform must increase your support team size considerably.
- it33 10y ago
  From what we've seen at Mattermost (open source Slack-alternative, https://mattermost.com/ https://mattermost.com/) supporting on-premises deployments with an open source community is actually pretty awesome. We have over a thousand people on our forums helping each other out, people are building installers for Mattermost in Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Docker, etc. (just web search to find them). We're also getting help writing and updating our deployment docs (https://docs.mattermost.com/ https://docs.mattermost.com/).

mythz 10y ago

They're referring to an open 3rd Party API platform - not giving away their secret sauce.

Touche 10y ago
Can you explain the difference between an open and a closed 3rd party API?
- yoz-y 10y ago
  I guess here the split is between a closed source 3rd party API and no API at all.
- daveFNbuck 10y ago
  To develop an app using the Slack API, you do not need to register with Slack and download an API key for your app. Anyone can just develop whatever they like without having to ask permission first and there's no easy way to selectively shut down apps that Slack doesn't like.
RandomOpinion 10y ago
Slack is a chat application, one of a vast multitude. There's not all that much secret sauce to give away.
- azinman2 10y ago
  Their secret sauce seems to be in how they can convince so many people to use it despite similar products existing for decades. I really wish I knew the answer to this question, I admire it a lot.
  - ericclemmons 10y ago
    The UX is top notch. Not only is the UI polished, but big details like mentioning someone and an invite link appearing is awesome. Or force-pinging someone on DnD because of an emergency. Slack is seriously user-centric, all the way down to how they run their Twitter.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Have you used it on an under powered laptop? It's dog slow and gets exponentially worse the longer you have it open. Don't even thinking about scrolling back through the history.
    - azinman2 10y ago
      They didn't start with all that, but somehow amassed a lot of users anyway. I believe it's more about the personal networks of the original team, but that's just a guess.
kqia040 10y ago
Well, what deep secrets could a chatapp possibly have thats unreplicable.
saurik 10y ago
Providing APIs for third-party integration is what Microsoft is almost too good at (hence why Word and Excel are so scarey). The idea that Slack would be so dumb as to believe that Microsoft will do poorly at this is shocking.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Indeed. Slack thinks they're an "open platform" because they have an "open API" that lets people contribute more data to their closed silo.

thejosh 10y ago

Slack really needs to gift open source projects with a large userbase who use Slack 100% free, with the catch being no private rooms or something, fully web searchable.

mugsie 10y ago
Slack has said they do not want open source projects to use it. It is the single most annoying thing about some projects - I get it, IRC doesn't show your emojis, but it just works.
- yoz-y 10y ago
  I remember an article about not using slack for FOSS projects, but it was not from Slack. Would you happen to have a link for your claim? I would be quite interested why they would not want to be used by somebody. That being said I do believe that Slack is a poor choice of medium for a free project, mainly because of the limited history and no publicly searchable transcripts.
  - mugsie 10y ago
    And the fact that it costs them a fair amount of money to host large instances of slack. Can't seem to find the link, but you can see they will give discounts for non profits, up to 250 users. - https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/204368833 https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/204368833 Its a poor medium, as it locks projects into a walled garden ecosystem.
- thejosh 10y ago
  Yeah, I wish they didn't either, but certain projects are mainly slack it seems. I hate it so much for this purpose. I guess I'm also apart of the problem. :P Come back to IRC, FOSS!
  - mugsie 10y ago
    yeah - i do work on 2 projects right now, one on freenode, one on slack. guess which one I look at regularly?

m3rc 10y ago

"ironic" is one word for it, "hypocritical" also came to mind, along with "shameless lying" and "disgustingly misleading"

ff10 10y ago

(I did an CMD-F and searched for mattermost, nothing found.)

Arnt 10y ago

I've written stuff to send notifications to slack channels and to XMPP. Slack was distinctly easier, so IMO they have a decent argument that Slack's more open than XMPP. (You might consider other aspects of openness more important, of course.)