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The fact that this industry turned to a proprietary low-quality solution like Slack when Riot/Matrix have already existed tells the full story about what a bunc

The fact that this industry turned to a proprietary low-quality solution like Slack when Riot/Matrix have already existed tells the full story about what a bunch of incompetent idiots we all are. Everyone frustrated with the new Slack input box deserves what they got. Me included.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Let's put some more blame on people who chose Slack for their companies/teams/communities. Most Slack users don't use it willingly. I for one am showing the middle finger here; when forced to talk on Slack, I use Ripcord as a client.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
The reason for Slack's success is probably because it's a "turn key solution": you register your company, invite your employees, enter your CC, and you're good to go. With a lot of these open solutions things are more complex. I think we should really focus on providing a good UX here if we want more adoption. (also, I don't know if Riot is that much better; opening https://riot.im/app/ https://riot.im/app/ makes Firefox use 100% CPU and my laptops fan spin; I closed it after 10 seconds of just a loading animation)
- Arathorn 7y ago
  https://modular.im https://modular.im gives a turnkey hosting solution for Riot/Matrix for what it’s worth. Riot should be lighter weight than Slack, but launch (particularly if you haven’t used it in ages) can be slow, plus we’re chasing a startup perf regression on firefox atm. The main reason Riot’s better is that you can use your own server, participate in an open network, and have control over the software if some feature gets pushed out that you dislike. And you get E2E encryption :)
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    Coolio on both! I think the messaging on modular.im could be a lot better, IMO. I don't know what the relations between all the different organisations/people are here, but having all of "Matrix", "Riot", "Modular" is just confusing branding/marketing. It would be much better to have just "Matrix protocol", "Matrix self-hosted", and "Matrix hosted", for example. Right now, it's not even immediately clear that hosted Matrix is an option from just looking at the Riot and Matrix websites. Just my 2c from a casually interested potential Modular customer.
    - feanaro 7y ago
      It's true this is how a typical centralized commercial solution would be marketed. However, it's a bit trickier for Matrix since it's an open protocol with a neutral governing foundation and many client implementations. Although New Vector (the company behind Modular) is currently driving most of the development of Matrix and Riot (the first and reference client), matrix.org itself is supposed to be a neutral network-related site. Notice the remark that it's controlled by the Matrix Foundation at the bottom of the page, and not New Vector. That said, Riot does have a reference to Modular, but it's buried here: https://about.riot.im/free https://about.riot.im/free. I'd personally be fine with it being displayed somewhere more prominently (or at least under a more intuitive section name than "Free!"). I also think it would also be a good idea if the Riot page mentioned Matrix (or the Matrix logo) somewhere above the fold.
- buboard 7y ago
  > solutions things are more complex it's kinda sad that it has come to be that tech companies will consider installing matrix "complex".
  - gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
    It isn't the install. It is the updates - and the potential for future backwards incompatible updates. FLOSS software needs hosted, supported, reasonably priced versions with security updates to be competitive.
    - buboard 7y ago
      sorry, i think if a tech company can't maintain an install for something that is crucial , then it shouldnt be a tech company.perhaps it s a marketing shop or sth. it's as if tech is delegating so much away that in the end there will be nobody left willing to actually do the tech
      - nbouscal 7y ago
        Maybe consider that we have literally hundreds of priority tasks, all of which are legitimately very important, and that while we can spend the time necessary to install and maintain non-turnkey solutions, we’d really prefer to work on one of the other priorities with that time.
        buboard 7y ago
        This is just a general comment on the state of tech, not personal. It seems the priorities have shifted into other things away from tech.
        nbouscal 7y ago
        There’s no such thing as general tech priorities, it’s just an amalgam of a bunch of individual priorities. In most of the cases I’ve seen those priorities are very reasonable. If you start a tech company and prioritize fiddling with internal messaging software over building your product, you’re going to fail. Prioritizing tech doesn’t mean yak shaving every random task, it means outsourcing as many non-essential tasks as you possibly can so that you have as much time and attention as possible for the one specific technical task that matters: building your product.
Arathorn 7y ago
to be fair, Slack predates Riot (and Riot has only got properly usable as a Slack replacement since hitting 1.0 in Feb this year). But yes, very frustrating to see folks forced by a proprietary product to suck up something like the Slack editor change when there are FOSS options where you can just roll it back, set a config flag to get what you want, or worst case fork it.
jeltz 7y ago
Slack predates Riot by quite a lot.
buboard 7y ago
There is a chicken-and-egg problem with matrix. It's clearly nice, but the more people use it, the easier it will become to install/maintain. That's how wordpress wins over commercial blogging platforms. One thing i found it hard to do is integrate matrix with an existing database of users. It would be perfect for our community chat.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Let's put some more blame on people who chose Slack for their companies/teams/communities. Most Slack users don't use it willingly. I for one am showing the middle finger here; when forced to talk on Slack, I use Ripcord as a client.

Carpetsmoker 7y ago

The reason for Slack's success is probably because it's a "turn key solution": you register your company, invite your employees, enter your CC, and you're good to go. With a lot of these open solutions things are more complex. I think we should really focus on providing a good UX here if we want more adoption. (also, I don't know if Riot is that much better; opening https://riot.im/app/ https://riot.im/app/ makes Firefox use 100% CPU and my laptops fan spin; I closed it after 10 seconds of just a loading animation)

Arathorn 7y ago
https://modular.im https://modular.im gives a turnkey hosting solution for Riot/Matrix for what it’s worth. Riot should be lighter weight than Slack, but launch (particularly if you haven’t used it in ages) can be slow, plus we’re chasing a startup perf regression on firefox atm. The main reason Riot’s better is that you can use your own server, participate in an open network, and have control over the software if some feature gets pushed out that you dislike. And you get E2E encryption :)
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  Coolio on both! I think the messaging on modular.im could be a lot better, IMO. I don't know what the relations between all the different organisations/people are here, but having all of "Matrix", "Riot", "Modular" is just confusing branding/marketing. It would be much better to have just "Matrix protocol", "Matrix self-hosted", and "Matrix hosted", for example. Right now, it's not even immediately clear that hosted Matrix is an option from just looking at the Riot and Matrix websites. Just my 2c from a casually interested potential Modular customer.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    It's true this is how a typical centralized commercial solution would be marketed. However, it's a bit trickier for Matrix since it's an open protocol with a neutral governing foundation and many client implementations. Although New Vector (the company behind Modular) is currently driving most of the development of Matrix and Riot (the first and reference client), matrix.org itself is supposed to be a neutral network-related site. Notice the remark that it's controlled by the Matrix Foundation at the bottom of the page, and not New Vector. That said, Riot does have a reference to Modular, but it's buried here: https://about.riot.im/free https://about.riot.im/free. I'd personally be fine with it being displayed somewhere more prominently (or at least under a more intuitive section name than "Free!"). I also think it would also be a good idea if the Riot page mentioned Matrix (or the Matrix logo) somewhere above the fold.
buboard 7y ago
> solutions things are more complex it's kinda sad that it has come to be that tech companies will consider installing matrix "complex".
- gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
  It isn't the install. It is the updates - and the potential for future backwards incompatible updates. FLOSS software needs hosted, supported, reasonably priced versions with security updates to be competitive.
  - buboard 7y ago
    sorry, i think if a tech company can't maintain an install for something that is crucial , then it shouldnt be a tech company.perhaps it s a marketing shop or sth. it's as if tech is delegating so much away that in the end there will be nobody left willing to actually do the tech
    - nbouscal 7y ago
      Maybe consider that we have literally hundreds of priority tasks, all of which are legitimately very important, and that while we can spend the time necessary to install and maintain non-turnkey solutions, we’d really prefer to work on one of the other priorities with that time.
      - buboard 7y ago
        This is just a general comment on the state of tech, not personal. It seems the priorities have shifted into other things away from tech.
        nbouscal 7y ago
        There’s no such thing as general tech priorities, it’s just an amalgam of a bunch of individual priorities. In most of the cases I’ve seen those priorities are very reasonable. If you start a tech company and prioritize fiddling with internal messaging software over building your product, you’re going to fail. Prioritizing tech doesn’t mean yak shaving every random task, it means outsourcing as many non-essential tasks as you possibly can so that you have as much time and attention as possible for the one specific technical task that matters: building your product.

Arathorn 7y ago

to be fair, Slack predates Riot (and Riot has only got properly usable as a Slack replacement since hitting 1.0 in Feb this year). But yes, very frustrating to see folks forced by a proprietary product to suck up something like the Slack editor change when there are FOSS options where you can just roll it back, set a config flag to get what you want, or worst case fork it.

jeltz 7y ago

Slack predates Riot by quite a lot.

buboard 7y ago

There is a chicken-and-egg problem with matrix. It's clearly nice, but the more people use it, the easier it will become to install/maintain. That's how wordpress wins over commercial blogging platforms. One thing i found it hard to do is integrate matrix with an existing database of users. It would be perfect for our community chat.