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There was a discussion in MermaidJS community to move away from Slack into Discord. But we were thinking about moving to a FOSS platform instead. What are some

There was a discussion in MermaidJS community to move away from Slack into Discord. But we were thinking about moving to a FOSS platform instead. What are some viable options that communities have had success with?

djbusby 3y ago
Mattermost is my favorite.
toastal 3y ago
IRC is very low bandwidth & offers the minimal requirements for communication which can be accessible/acceptable for many projects. If something heavier is needed or wanted, XMPP MUCs & Matrix Spaces may be a good option since they are federated & decentralized (although Matrix has unfortunate defacto centralization around Matrix.org, because it requires quite a lot of resources to self-host in both the Python server as well as mirroring all content for all users for its take on federation). Mattermost & Zulip are fine, but require an account (I believe) to the central server but are FOSS & used enough places to be considered stable/trustworthy. All options can by bridged to all other options (even the proprietary ones) in some manner, but if possible, the defacto server would be FOSS & owned/operated by the community so that that community can define their ToS and/or CoC. This way they are in control of the community rather than requiring users agree to someone else’s—especially a for-profit US corporation’s—terms in order to participate. Some users will want privacy, anonymity, control of personal data, or to get around a firewall/sanctions …and these desires should be considered acceptable. If not self-hosted (requires time/money), it’s still better to choose something using open protocols, like a space on Matrix.org, a big chatroom on XMPP’s Blabber/Conversations, Libera.Chat/OFTC, etc.
throwaway290 3y ago
Self host Zulip, very easy, awesome integrations, etc.
kraihx 3y ago
Matrix is the way to go for FOSS.
- toastal 3y ago
  It’s expensive to self-host, and centralized if using Matrix.org. It has its uses, but XMPP MUCs have a lot of overlapping features & Prosody/ejabbard can run on a potato by comparison.
  - eTomte 3y ago
    It might be expensive for an organization to host, but for individual / small groups it can be as low as $6/mo. I've been running a small Matrix server on a DigitalOcean droplet for years now, and the $6/mo plan has been working fine for 5 users, and three bridges running on that server.
    - toastal 3y ago
      I believe all messages/multimedia from all users & the history all the rooms & private messages need to be mirrored which can end up being a lot even with a few users depending on what they’ve joined. If my understand is wrong tho, I’d like to know so I’m not running around with this notion.
      - eTomte 3y ago
        No, you're right...that can be an issue. I had to configure my server to disallow large rooms and enforce some file size limits.
nicoburns 3y ago
I'd second the recommendation for Zulip. It's pretty similar to Slack/Discord, but unlike those it has good support for making the archives public. It also has much better threading support, which is a nice bonus.

djbusby 3y ago

Mattermost is my favorite.

toastal 3y ago

IRC is very low bandwidth & offers the minimal requirements for communication which can be accessible/acceptable for many projects. If something heavier is needed or wanted, XMPP MUCs & Matrix Spaces may be a good option since they are federated & decentralized (although Matrix has unfortunate defacto centralization around Matrix.org, because it requires quite a lot of resources to self-host in both the Python server as well as mirroring all content for all users for its take on federation). Mattermost & Zulip are fine, but require an account (I believe) to the central server but are FOSS & used enough places to be considered stable/trustworthy. All options can by bridged to all other options (even the proprietary ones) in some manner, but if possible, the defacto server would be FOSS & owned/operated by the community so that that community can define their ToS and/or CoC. This way they are in control of the community rather than requiring users agree to someone else’s—especially a for-profit US corporation’s—terms in order to participate. Some users will want privacy, anonymity, control of personal data, or to get around a firewall/sanctions …and these desires should be considered acceptable. If not self-hosted (requires time/money), it’s still better to choose something using open protocols, like a space on Matrix.org, a big chatroom on XMPP’s Blabber/Conversations, Libera.Chat/OFTC, etc.

throwaway290 3y ago

Self host Zulip, very easy, awesome integrations, etc.

kraihx 3y ago

Matrix is the way to go for FOSS.

toastal 3y ago
It’s expensive to self-host, and centralized if using Matrix.org. It has its uses, but XMPP MUCs have a lot of overlapping features & Prosody/ejabbard can run on a potato by comparison.
- eTomte 3y ago
  It might be expensive for an organization to host, but for individual / small groups it can be as low as $6/mo. I've been running a small Matrix server on a DigitalOcean droplet for years now, and the $6/mo plan has been working fine for 5 users, and three bridges running on that server.
  - toastal 3y ago
    I believe all messages/multimedia from all users & the history all the rooms & private messages need to be mirrored which can end up being a lot even with a few users depending on what they’ve joined. If my understand is wrong tho, I’d like to know so I’m not running around with this notion.
    - eTomte 3y ago
      No, you're right...that can be an issue. I had to configure my server to disallow large rooms and enforce some file size limits.

nicoburns 3y ago

I'd second the recommendation for Zulip. It's pretty similar to Slack/Discord, but unlike those it has good support for making the archives public. It also has much better threading support, which is a nice bonus.