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This is another argument against using proprietary SaaS solutions for such crucial purposes as business communication. There are free open source alternatives w

This is another argument against using proprietary SaaS solutions for such crucial purposes as business communication. There are free open source alternatives which give you full control and privacy: Mattermost, Riot.im, Rocket.chat, Let's Chat.

ascar 7y ago
If you mean with "you" the operator of the tool, then yes I agree partially. But in this context it's more like "you" the user and then using open source alternatives doesn't make a big difference. Updates (which you generally want for security/good features/fixes/x) will still break your workflow regularly. It's about how the service handles change (e.g. options to use the old interface etc.) that make the difference and not open source or proprietary. There are many examples in FOSS that made user interfaces arguably worse and you have a hard time dealing with it, if you still need/want to run the newer version for other reasons.
- joepie91_ 7y ago
  It being open-source (under your control) or not does make a difference here. In an open-source thing, with this sort of productivity-harming breakage, you could worst-case just pay a random freelancer to fix it for you. You don't have that option with Slack.
  - acdha 7y ago
    That’s how you end up with critical apps which are full of known security issues because now upgrading requires reverse-engineering and migrating a bunch of one-off customizations. This approach only works if you’re committed to paying regularly to maintain your fork.
    - woodrowbarlow 7y ago
      or upstream your fixes
      - gizmo686 7y ago
        That only works if upstream wants your fixes.
        eythian 7y ago
        Then you have the proprietary problem again, only worse as then you can't make the fixes.
    - joepie91_ 7y ago
      I did say "worst-case". And as another commenter suggested, upstream your fixes.
      - acdha 7y ago
        “upstream your fixes” only works if the upstream wants them. If you charge in saying “you're all dummies (per OP); here's a patch which goes against your project direction which I want you to maintain in the future”, that's probably not going to be very successful.
- xenorplxx 7y ago
  Exactly that. There was an interview with Basecamp founder here a few days ago and he highlighted that even now when the current version is Basecamp 3 they still maintain Basecamp 1 for clients who don't want to make the change.
SubuSS 7y ago
We shouldn't fetishize control as much. In >15 years what I have seen is that OSS comes with a huge cost of attention - that you'd be better off focusing on your business need. Running most of these OSS even at a medium employee count scale is a full-team-commit-nightmare. It essentially means your it department now needs a specialist who will be able to handle your org quirks, remember the tweaks and keep baby sitting it. Not to mention many OSS teams (I don't know about the above listed) are ever so sneakily introducing enterprise clauses about usage in their EULA. I don't want to name names, but even with paid software we are seeing this problem everywhere in trying to host: But at least here, we got the actual developers and experts on a call who can walk us through why x employees are fine and x+1 nukes their system.
- CloudNetworking 7y ago
  We don't need OSS in this case, we need open protocols so anyone can use any other client, proprietary or not.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    We've had a perfectly good open chat protocol since... gosh, I don't even know. It's called IRC and it's so simple you can implement a server or client in python in under an hour. This is what happens when you over-engineer things.
    - pitaj 7y ago
      IRC has many drawbacks not shared by more modern protocols. Slack works when you're offline, saves history, has notifications, search, etc. IRC is not perfectly good or it would still be used.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        > Slack works when you're offline IRC doesn't do that, true, but there's a bunch of ways around it. > saves history, has notifications, search Trivial to implement in the client. > IRC is not perfectly good or it would still be used IRC is still used. Almost everything any fancier messaging protocol does can, and has, been implemented as a client-side feature with little hassle.
iicc 7y ago
also https://zulipchat.com https://zulipchat.com
Jestar342 7y ago
A lot of orgs have been there. Jabber/XMPP. It hurts. So we all use slack now.

ascar 7y ago

If you mean with "you" the operator of the tool, then yes I agree partially. But in this context it's more like "you" the user and then using open source alternatives doesn't make a big difference. Updates (which you generally want for security/good features/fixes/x) will still break your workflow regularly. It's about how the service handles change (e.g. options to use the old interface etc.) that make the difference and not open source or proprietary. There are many examples in FOSS that made user interfaces arguably worse and you have a hard time dealing with it, if you still need/want to run the newer version for other reasons.

joepie91_ 7y ago
It being open-source (under your control) or not does make a difference here. In an open-source thing, with this sort of productivity-harming breakage, you could worst-case just pay a random freelancer to fix it for you. You don't have that option with Slack.
- acdha 7y ago
  That’s how you end up with critical apps which are full of known security issues because now upgrading requires reverse-engineering and migrating a bunch of one-off customizations. This approach only works if you’re committed to paying regularly to maintain your fork.
  - woodrowbarlow 7y ago
    or upstream your fixes
    - gizmo686 7y ago
      That only works if upstream wants your fixes.
      - eythian 7y ago
        Then you have the proprietary problem again, only worse as then you can't make the fixes.
  - joepie91_ 7y ago
    I did say "worst-case". And as another commenter suggested, upstream your fixes.
    - acdha 7y ago
      “upstream your fixes” only works if the upstream wants them. If you charge in saying “you're all dummies (per OP); here's a patch which goes against your project direction which I want you to maintain in the future”, that's probably not going to be very successful.
xenorplxx 7y ago
Exactly that. There was an interview with Basecamp founder here a few days ago and he highlighted that even now when the current version is Basecamp 3 they still maintain Basecamp 1 for clients who don't want to make the change.

SubuSS 7y ago

We shouldn't fetishize control as much. In >15 years what I have seen is that OSS comes with a huge cost of attention - that you'd be better off focusing on your business need. Running most of these OSS even at a medium employee count scale is a full-team-commit-nightmare. It essentially means your it department now needs a specialist who will be able to handle your org quirks, remember the tweaks and keep baby sitting it. Not to mention many OSS teams (I don't know about the above listed) are ever so sneakily introducing enterprise clauses about usage in their EULA. I don't want to name names, but even with paid software we are seeing this problem everywhere in trying to host: But at least here, we got the actual developers and experts on a call who can walk us through why x employees are fine and x+1 nukes their system.

CloudNetworking 7y ago
We don't need OSS in this case, we need open protocols so anyone can use any other client, proprietary or not.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  We've had a perfectly good open chat protocol since... gosh, I don't even know. It's called IRC and it's so simple you can implement a server or client in python in under an hour. This is what happens when you over-engineer things.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    IRC has many drawbacks not shared by more modern protocols. Slack works when you're offline, saves history, has notifications, search, etc. IRC is not perfectly good or it would still be used.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > Slack works when you're offline IRC doesn't do that, true, but there's a bunch of ways around it. > saves history, has notifications, search Trivial to implement in the client. > IRC is not perfectly good or it would still be used IRC is still used. Almost everything any fancier messaging protocol does can, and has, been implemented as a client-side feature with little hassle.

iicc 7y ago

also https://zulipchat.com https://zulipchat.com

Jestar342 7y ago

A lot of orgs have been there. Jabber/XMPP. It hurts. So we all use slack now.