Slack-like chat (also for GSOC)

[Umesh Singla]

I remember seeing Gitter.im being used by more than a usual number of open
source communities in the past. While I am personally fine with Github
Issues/PRs and emails, a chat-like application does come in handy for quick
replies.

I logged in just now to my old account from over 2 years back and I see no
limits on the messages. You can sign in with Github/Twitter. There is this
idea of community and rooms like IRC, and while anyone can read the
community messages by visiting the link, one needs to sign in to talk. It's
linked to a Github organization and owners of the organization act like
admins. It also allows for one-on-one conversations and rooms where only
invited users can join.

An example would be: https://gitter.im/coala/coala

@Mojca would you be willing to give this https://gitter.im/macports-gsoc a
try? I tried creating one suitable for us. Let me know if you are able to
see the secret room. :)

Thanks,
Umesh

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 2:02 AM Mojca Miklavec <mojca at macports.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 14 May 2019 at 18:11, Rainer Müller wrote:
> >
> > I think Slack workspaces are also always invite only, but please correct
> > me if I am wrong (maybe only for paid plans?). Assuming we might want to
> > replace IRC one day as the official development and support chat, that
> > would not work well.
> >
> > I think it is important that this would be open for anyone interested to
> > join, with private group chats as an optional feature.
>
> +1
>
> > > We don't need to all agree at once. I don't see anything wrong with
> > > giving it some testing first and decide what's best (no need to ask
> > > everyone to turn IRC off :).
> >
> > I recently tried the Matrix IRC Bridge to FreeNode IRC. By using riot.im
> > it actually works quite well and was easy to set up. It also solves the
> > "always-on" problem of IRC as it acts like a bouncer.
> >
> > >>> Would it be realistic to install such a service on breaburn if
> needed?
> > >>> (Or is it too complex / too much work?)
> > >>
> > >> I'd prefer a SaaS offering here. Self-hosting just increases the
> > >> maintenance burden and I don't think we need the configurability.
> >
> > For the self-hosted options, Rocket Chat would be an option. However,
> > when we used it at work, after a while I started to miss some kind of
> > threading for longer conversations. Although we also usually do not have
> > long conversations or that much activity on IRC, so maybe this is not
> > that important here.
>
> I don't have any experience with Matrix, but I maybe I should try it once.
>
> I'm not familiar with Rocket Chat either, but if you missed a feature,
> I trust your opinion.
>
> I do believe that longer conversations are important. Think of GSOC,
> where the same project runs for 5 months or longer. It does make sense
> to keep it well-organised.
>
> Zulip offers topics (which they heavily advertise as one of their
> "superpowers") which I find to be quite a nice "substitute" for
> threads like those in emails. If we pick that one, I would certainly
> go for GitHub OAuth and IRC mirror.
>
> I would discard the idea of using Slack. Based on general feedback
> that probably leaves the following top candidates?
> - Matrix (might work without self-hosting)
> - Zulip
> - Mattermost
>
> Rainer, you did not answer about whether you would be willing to try
> to install / maintain one of those on the server if we wanted to
> self-host the chat?
>
> Regarding Matrix: is anyone willing to set up one ("in the cloud") for
> testing?
>
> Mojca
>
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