5 ms·

"just running an IRC server" is... a lot. Or can be. Who is running it? Does it scale well? How is login synced with corporate logins? What about mobile devices

by untog 7y ago

"just running an IRC server" is... a lot. Or can be. Who is running it? Does it scale well? How is login synced with corporate logins? What about mobile devices? It's not "better" than email, it's different. Real time. It has a million and one service integrations, which IRC doesn't. Point is, it's really not all that crazy to just pay a third party to manage all this stuff for you. You might imagine the alternative is a perfect IRC server with 100% uptime, but I doubt that would be the reality. If you're saying a service like this is too important to be run by a third party then you're going to have to invest a lot internally to come up with an alternative that's more reliable.

pmlnr 7y ago
> Does it scale well? It's IRC. On modern hardware. It's practically infinite. > it has a million and one service integrations, which IRC doesn't. There and were are things way before Slack, eg https://loqi.me/ https://loqi.me/
- untog 7y ago
  Obviously you can create IRC integrations for anything. But how many are installable with one click, like Slack integrations are? Having to write custom implementations is yet another extra task and point of failure compared to just paying someone to manage it all for you.
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    another "but". First "but it doesn't scale". Now "but integrations". There will always be another "but", and there will always be a link on the internet showing that it's been done already. "but shiny web gui" - https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ "but mobile app" - https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc "but it's complicated" - https://www.mirc.com/ https://www.mirc.com/ since 1995 IRC does have limits. Some. One is that to make it "modern" it needs a bouncer - that said znc is spectacularly simple to set up with it's web interface. Integrations were never one of those limits. Just google IRC bots.
    - untog 7y ago
      > another "but" That's my entire point. It's death by a thousand cuts. Now I'm responsible for an IRC server, a web frontend, a mobile app and a bouncer. The OP said "just run an IRC server". There is no "Slack or just an IRC server". There's "Slack or a number of connected, interdependent services you need to maintain". I'm not saying it can't be done, or that it isn't the right answer for some people, but it's also a lot more work (and thus, expense) than just paying for Slack. It absolutely makes sense that people do it.
      - pmlnr 7y ago
        Why is paying another company better than getting employees and paying them the same or even less money?! When did this madness start?
        untog 7y ago
        In what world is it going to be "the same or even less money" to hire one or two sysadmins on a full-time basis than paying for a Slack subscription?
        pmlnr 7y ago
        I don't know how large your company is, but with 10k+ employees, it's suddenly a reasonable option.
        untog 7y ago
        With that many employees you're signing up for Slack's enterprise tier, and you can bet they price it so that they come out the right side of this cost/benefit calculation for a lot of companies.
        pmlnr 7y ago
        I have seen those numbers. You could easily afford paying sysadmins with those numbers.
- manquer 7y ago
  Features is not the only thing, does it have well funded sales team and strong corporate support ? Slack itself did support IRC till recently, the product is not just a sum of its features
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    > does it have well funded sales team and strong corporate support Get 2 sysadmins. 2 because of redundancy. Pay them to maintain your service. "well funded sales team and corporate support". F that. Trust your employees.
    - yoz-y 7y ago
      2 sysadmins will cost considerably more than a few slack accounts. Unless your company is huge.
      - pmlnr 7y ago
        > Unless your company is huge. Yes. Someone above have mentioned ibm using slack though. I think that's huge enough for the argument.
        yoz-y 7y ago
        Yes at that scale it may be useful to roll out a custom system. However I'd count into account that large customers probably have different pricing and that maintaining custom systems is always bothersome because you are always the largest customer.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      "Well funded sales team" is unfortunately what makes closed products win over open ones.
    - geofft 7y ago
      What happens when your sysadmins say "Maintaining IRC is a waste of time and gets us 1% of the features Slack does, let's just get Slack?" (At my last company, it was the sysadmin team, including myself, who decided to switch to Slack and killed our IRC server.) Do you stop trusting them then?
alt_f4 7y ago
Come on, in the 90s and early 00s, volunteers ran and managed IRC networks scaling up to hundreds of thousands of users. This was back when hardware and bandwidth were much weaker and 100x more expensive. It's really not that hard.
- untog 7y ago
  Yes, volunteers ran these things. How many? Because you're going to need to have paid employees rather than volunteers running your servers. Is it going to be more reliable and cost effective than just paying a third party to run a service for you?
  - Karunamon 7y ago
    For something like IRC? Yes. The service is dead simple and one server can handle thousands of users with modest hardware and without breaking a sweat. A completely unfamiliar sysadmin could set it up in an hour or less. Since it's probably internal, there's little need for public services (nick/channel registration, etc).
    - untog 7y ago
      So what about the mobile device issue? Corporate logins? If you want to match what Slack offers you aren't just running an IRC server, you're going to have a small fleet of dependent services that, added up, just about match what Slack does. Is it really that surprising that people just opt to pay for someone to deal with all of this for them?
      - Karunamon 7y ago
        At which point you're not looking at IRC as a service anymore. There are different niches served - but the question was about the reasonableness of setting up IRC alone, which is still dead easy.
      - LinuxBender 7y ago
        Put TheLounge [1] in front of it for people that want a web interface. Perhaps use ldap for corp users. [2] [1] - https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ [2] - https://thelounge.chat/docs/configuration#ldap-support https://thelounge.chat/docs/configuration#ldap-support

by untog 7y ago

pmlnr 7y ago

> Does it scale well? It's IRC. On modern hardware. It's practically infinite. > it has a million and one service integrations, which IRC doesn't. There and were are things way before Slack, eg https://loqi.me/ https://loqi.me/

untog 7y ago
Obviously you can create IRC integrations for anything. But how many are installable with one click, like Slack integrations are? Having to write custom implementations is yet another extra task and point of failure compared to just paying someone to manage it all for you.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  another "but". First "but it doesn't scale". Now "but integrations". There will always be another "but", and there will always be a link on the internet showing that it's been done already. "but shiny web gui" - https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ "but mobile app" - https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc https://github.com/MCMrARM/revolution-irc "but it's complicated" - https://www.mirc.com/ https://www.mirc.com/ since 1995 IRC does have limits. Some. One is that to make it "modern" it needs a bouncer - that said znc is spectacularly simple to set up with it's web interface. Integrations were never one of those limits. Just google IRC bots.
  - untog 7y ago
    > another "but" That's my entire point. It's death by a thousand cuts. Now I'm responsible for an IRC server, a web frontend, a mobile app and a bouncer. The OP said "just run an IRC server". There is no "Slack or just an IRC server". There's "Slack or a number of connected, interdependent services you need to maintain". I'm not saying it can't be done, or that it isn't the right answer for some people, but it's also a lot more work (and thus, expense) than just paying for Slack. It absolutely makes sense that people do it.
    - pmlnr 7y ago
      Why is paying another company better than getting employees and paying them the same or even less money?! When did this madness start?
      - untog 7y ago
        In what world is it going to be "the same or even less money" to hire one or two sysadmins on a full-time basis than paying for a Slack subscription?
        pmlnr 7y ago
        I don't know how large your company is, but with 10k+ employees, it's suddenly a reasonable option.
        untog 7y ago
        With that many employees you're signing up for Slack's enterprise tier, and you can bet they price it so that they come out the right side of this cost/benefit calculation for a lot of companies.
        pmlnr 7y ago
        I have seen those numbers. You could easily afford paying sysadmins with those numbers.
manquer 7y ago
Features is not the only thing, does it have well funded sales team and strong corporate support ? Slack itself did support IRC till recently, the product is not just a sum of its features
- pmlnr 7y ago
  > does it have well funded sales team and strong corporate support Get 2 sysadmins. 2 because of redundancy. Pay them to maintain your service. "well funded sales team and corporate support". F that. Trust your employees.
  - yoz-y 7y ago
    2 sysadmins will cost considerably more than a few slack accounts. Unless your company is huge.
    - pmlnr 7y ago
      > Unless your company is huge. Yes. Someone above have mentioned ibm using slack though. I think that's huge enough for the argument.
      - yoz-y 7y ago
        Yes at that scale it may be useful to roll out a custom system. However I'd count into account that large customers probably have different pricing and that maintaining custom systems is always bothersome because you are always the largest customer.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    "Well funded sales team" is unfortunately what makes closed products win over open ones.
  - geofft 7y ago
    What happens when your sysadmins say "Maintaining IRC is a waste of time and gets us 1% of the features Slack does, let's just get Slack?" (At my last company, it was the sysadmin team, including myself, who decided to switch to Slack and killed our IRC server.) Do you stop trusting them then?

alt_f4 7y ago

Come on, in the 90s and early 00s, volunteers ran and managed IRC networks scaling up to hundreds of thousands of users. This was back when hardware and bandwidth were much weaker and 100x more expensive. It's really not that hard.

untog 7y ago
Yes, volunteers ran these things. How many? Because you're going to need to have paid employees rather than volunteers running your servers. Is it going to be more reliable and cost effective than just paying a third party to run a service for you?
- Karunamon 7y ago
  For something like IRC? Yes. The service is dead simple and one server can handle thousands of users with modest hardware and without breaking a sweat. A completely unfamiliar sysadmin could set it up in an hour or less. Since it's probably internal, there's little need for public services (nick/channel registration, etc).
  - untog 7y ago
    So what about the mobile device issue? Corporate logins? If you want to match what Slack offers you aren't just running an IRC server, you're going to have a small fleet of dependent services that, added up, just about match what Slack does. Is it really that surprising that people just opt to pay for someone to deal with all of this for them?
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      At which point you're not looking at IRC as a service anymore. There are different niches served - but the question was about the reasonableness of setting up IRC alone, which is still dead easy.
    - LinuxBender 7y ago
      Put TheLounge [1] in front of it for people that want a web interface. Perhaps use ldap for corp users. [2] [1] - https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ [2] - https://thelounge.chat/docs/configuration#ldap-support https://thelounge.chat/docs/configuration#ldap-support