Comment by davexunit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davexunit | Hacker News Reader

Completely agree! I see free software projects depend on proprietary tools all the time and it is very frustrating. I often see projects using JIRA or asking companies like JetBrains for gratis licenses to proprietary development tools, and now I'm seeing Slack more frequently. I will not participate in your free software project if you depend on SaaSS or proprietary software to get work done.

The company I work for uses Slack, and luckily there is an IRC bridge to connect to so I can keep my workflow in Emacs rather than having to use a clunky web interface, but there are many special Slack things that they don't render correctly in plain text form so I feel like a second-class citizen. If this is the future of text-based communication, I don't want to participate.

I like IRC. I like that things aren't centrally logged by default. I like the bots that I've been interacting with for many years (that I find to be better than whatever Slack bot I've come across, by the way.) I like Freenode as an IRC network. I like the variety of clients available (I prefer ERC, a client written in Emacs Lisp.) Could we use some sexy web clients to get less technical people on board? Sure! Should we use a proprietary, centralized, surveillance system until someone else fixes IRC issues for us? No way! We must reject Slack because it isn't a tool for the people, but a tool for profit.

What makes you think IRC isn't centrally logged? You realise that the Freenode staff have root on all Freenode servers, right? It's not actually a decentralised network at all, it just looks superficially like one from the outside: they could log whatever they wanted at any time.

I'm not even sure the servers use encryption between each other. If they do I didn't see any mention of it on the freenode website.

Heck, given that SSL isn't even a default for many IRC clients, I suspect that in practice it's vastly easier for governments to eavesdrop on IRC than on Slack which is fully SSL, always.

The software is very simple and doesn't have the ability to log messages like that. I maintain a fork of the ircd freenode uses and that simplicity has actually been a bit of a pain as things grow.

SaaSS? Seriously? The FSF's use of that is about as childish as Microsoft with a dollar sign. Is getting your taxes done by another party Accounting as a Calculator Substitute? Is taking your car to a shop Mechanic as a Toolbox Substitute? Slack has a lot of useful parts that go beyond just chat. Having a simple way of sharing snippets, saving history, using shared file repositories, all of which are easier if you don't strip out metadata and just throw a bare link into the channel. Finally, your false equivalency, that making money is always antisocial behavior, is ridiculous. Slack fills a niche that IRC doesn't and can't, and the developers decided that they would rather prefer a way to work on the project full-time without having to beg for donations.

Times do change, and tools do get better. Yes, it means having to change yourself, but stagnant work habits probably mean that you're missing other toolings, other methods, that can make you more productive. Sometimes, you do have to pull yourself out of your comfort zone, even if it means using eeevil software made by people with a salary.

I don't think they or the FSF are referring to chat apps like Slack. In fact, I think the FSF's definition specifically excludes group chat.

They are. They use that term for any hosted service.

From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-se... : "Neither is publishing your own materials via a blog site or a microblogging service such as Twitter or StatusNet. (These services may have other problems, of course.) The same goes for other communication not meant to be private, such as chat groups."

We must reject Slack because it isn't a tool for the people, but a tool for profit.

Absolutely this. Never forget this.

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