4 ms·

I would be surprised if you couldn't match or exceed slacks uptime running whatever alternative you want (IRC, mattermost, rocketchat, etc.) on a random dedicat

I would be surprised if you couldn't match or exceed slacks uptime running whatever alternative you want (IRC, mattermost, rocketchat, etc.) on a random dedicated server. Hardware is quite reliable these days. And updates can be scheduled to be at a convenient time for the team.

dheera 6y ago
Yes, but what if you're taking a few days off to backpack in the wilderness with no signal while it goes down? Who deals with the downtime?
- welterde 6y ago
  If you are the only technical person on your team then it's of course not ideal and would require some further thought into making things redundant. But even that is easy enough to do with IRC (setup two servers, link the irc servers together, single DNS record that points to both servers - job done). If there are other people on the team that have _some_ technical skills then they can fix it.. IRC lacks quite a few features compared to other solutions, but the reduced complexity does bring very low operational complexity.
  - dheera 6y ago
    IRC will be incredibly hard to use for non-technical people on your team. Mobile clients for IRC look like crap, and have horrible-looking ad bars. No integration with Google Drive, Github, or other things. It's just not a business-friendly tool. I'm an engineer and personally I'm fine with IRC, I'm just trying to be realistic here.
    - welterde 6y ago
      Is it really though? If I take a look at a random modern IRC desktop client - how is it more difficult to setup than say your email program? The amount of information needed on setup is about the same: server, username, password (in fact email can get a bit more confusing in big corporate email setups with differing imap and smtp servers, etc.) Also there are plenty of modern web clients for IRC, such as https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ or https://kiwiirc.com/ https://kiwiirc.com/ (which is supposed to work on mobile too).
      - dheera 6y ago
        > your email program Reality check: Most people don't use email programs anymore. Also how do you get IRC to sync all conversation data, history, between your several desktops and phones, how do you send files, make calls, and thread conversations?
        welterde 6y ago
        But clearly no one is saying that email is too hard to use and we should just use $something_else (or are they?). And you are starting to move goalposts here.. first it was uptime, then it was operations and now it's features... And what about those web based IRC solutions? They are even easier to use than slack, have combined history, file sharing, etc.
        mewpmewp2 6y ago
        They are moving the goalposts because there are several and ultimately very many reasons why IRC won't work, they just didn't bother to think of all the reasons and list them at once.
        welterde 6y ago
        Ultimately there is only one reason that matters: The person in charge of deciding what communication channel to use likes Slack/Teams/IRC/whatever. Add to that the SaaS propaganda that hosting literally anything yourself is just too hard (it really isn't). Or this notion people are just too stupid to deal with anything more than the simplest possible web interface - Really? what do those people even do? Stare at Notepad all day? Of course not. They stare at various complicated software packages ranging from CAD, $spreadsheet abominations, SAP to various Adobe software packages. Sprinkle in a bit of hype for the latest new thing and presto.. </rant>
        erikbye 6y ago
        > Reality check: Most people don't use email programs anymore. Guess you are not in enterprise.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Who deals with the downtime if any other on-premises system goes down? If you are running networks and software on site, and they are business-critical, you have people and a plan for this. Or you don't, and suffer the consequences.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dheera 6y ago

Yes, but what if you're taking a few days off to backpack in the wilderness with no signal while it goes down? Who deals with the downtime?

welterde 6y ago
If you are the only technical person on your team then it's of course not ideal and would require some further thought into making things redundant. But even that is easy enough to do with IRC (setup two servers, link the irc servers together, single DNS record that points to both servers - job done). If there are other people on the team that have _some_ technical skills then they can fix it.. IRC lacks quite a few features compared to other solutions, but the reduced complexity does bring very low operational complexity.
- dheera 6y ago
  IRC will be incredibly hard to use for non-technical people on your team. Mobile clients for IRC look like crap, and have horrible-looking ad bars. No integration with Google Drive, Github, or other things. It's just not a business-friendly tool. I'm an engineer and personally I'm fine with IRC, I'm just trying to be realistic here.
  - welterde 6y ago
    Is it really though? If I take a look at a random modern IRC desktop client - how is it more difficult to setup than say your email program? The amount of information needed on setup is about the same: server, username, password (in fact email can get a bit more confusing in big corporate email setups with differing imap and smtp servers, etc.) Also there are plenty of modern web clients for IRC, such as https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ or https://kiwiirc.com/ https://kiwiirc.com/ (which is supposed to work on mobile too).
    - dheera 6y ago
      > your email program Reality check: Most people don't use email programs anymore. Also how do you get IRC to sync all conversation data, history, between your several desktops and phones, how do you send files, make calls, and thread conversations?
      - welterde 6y ago
        But clearly no one is saying that email is too hard to use and we should just use $something_else (or are they?). And you are starting to move goalposts here.. first it was uptime, then it was operations and now it's features... And what about those web based IRC solutions? They are even easier to use than slack, have combined history, file sharing, etc.
        mewpmewp2 6y ago
        They are moving the goalposts because there are several and ultimately very many reasons why IRC won't work, they just didn't bother to think of all the reasons and list them at once.
        welterde 6y ago
        Ultimately there is only one reason that matters: The person in charge of deciding what communication channel to use likes Slack/Teams/IRC/whatever. Add to that the SaaS propaganda that hosting literally anything yourself is just too hard (it really isn't). Or this notion people are just too stupid to deal with anything more than the simplest possible web interface - Really? what do those people even do? Stare at Notepad all day? Of course not. They stare at various complicated software packages ranging from CAD, $spreadsheet abominations, SAP to various Adobe software packages. Sprinkle in a bit of hype for the latest new thing and presto.. </rant>
      - erikbye 6y ago
        > Reality check: Most people don't use email programs anymore. Guess you are not in enterprise.
throwaway201103 6y ago
Who deals with the downtime if any other on-premises system goes down? If you are running networks and software on site, and they are business-critical, you have people and a plan for this. Or you don't, and suffer the consequences.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]