On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 5:21 AM, Andrey Kurilin <andr.kuri...@gmail.com> wrote: > I can make an assumption that for marketing reasons, Slack Inc can propose > extended Free plan. > But anyway, even with default one the only thing which can limit us is > `10,000 searchable messages` which is bigger than 0 (freenode doesn't store > messages). > > > Why I like slack? because a lot of people are familar with it (a lot of > companies use it as like some opensource communities, like k8s ) > > PS: I realize that OpenStack Community will never go away from Freenode and > IRC, but I do not want to stay silent. >
My response wasn't intended to become a wall of text, but my individual experience dovetails with the ongoing thread. The intent here is not to focus on one thing or the other, but to highlight some of the strengths and drawbacks. This is a great proposal on-paper. As you said, lots of people are already familiar with the technology and concept at this point. It generally seems to make sense. The unfortunate reality is that with something that has N searchable messages -- that counts for the whole instance -- it will be exceeded within the first few days due to the initial surge, requiring tweaking, if possible. Ten thousand messages is not much for a large, distributed, culturally diverse group heavily entrenched in IRC, even if it is a nice looking number. There should not be a limit on recorded history such as that, lest it be forgotten every few months. From a technological perspective, that puts both such a proposal and the existing solution at direct odds. Having a proprietary third-party be the gatekeepers to chat-based outlets is not a good prospect over the long-term. For recorded history, eavesdrop, by far, exceeds that imposed value, by sheer virtue of it existing. In freemium offerings, much knowledge gets blown to the aether in exchange for gifs and emoji reactions. In these situations, of course, the users are, by default, the product. The long-term effects which can have lasting effects on a large, multicultural, open source project already under siege on certain fronts. Production OpenStack deployments have usually hitched their wagon to OpenStack: The Project for a multi-year effort at a minimum, which can and tends to involve some level of activity in parts of the community over that time. People come and go, but the long-term goals have generally remained the same. While the long-term ramifications of large FLOSS communities being on freemium proprietary platforms are just beginning to be felt, they're not quite to the point of inertia yet. Short of paying obscene amounts of money for chat, FLOSS alternatives need to be championed, far above any proprietary options with a free welcome mat, no matter how awesome and feature-rich they may be. Making a change of this order, this far in, is a drastic undertaking. I've been witness and participant in a similar migration, which took place a few years ago. It was heralded with much fanfare, a new day for engagement. It was full-on party parrot, until it wasn't. To this day, there are still IRC stragglers, with one or two experienced -- sometimes self-appointed -- individuals that tirelessly, asynchronously, answer softball questions and redirect to the other outlets for the more involved. Extended community channels, like development channels, are just kind of left to rot, with a topic that says "Go over here ---->". There is very little moderation, which develops a certain narrative all on its own. Today, that community on the free offering is quieter, more vibrant and immediately knowledgeable, albeit at the expense of recorded history. Questions take on a recurring theme at times, requiring one-to-one or one-to-many engagement for every question. The person wanting some fish tonight doesn't have a clean lake or stream to catch their dinner. Unfortunately, some of those long-term effects are beginning to be felt as of recent, after "everyone" is off of IRC. Fewer long-term maintainers are sticking around, and even fewer are stepping up to replace them. On the upshot, there are more new users always finding their way to the slick proprietary chat group. -scas __________________________________________________________________________ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev