[Talk-us] Slack: Do we need an Alternative (was Planning an import in Price George...)

[Greg Troxel]

Martijn van Exel <m at rtijn.org> writes:

> Hi Simon,
>
>> > * everyone is on it
>> That's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy after you've essentially
>> force migrated everybody there and then cut the ties with any other
>> competing media (in OSM) so that you can have your nice walled garden.
>
> I would argue that it is a good thing that people converge on one
> platform to talk about OSM. Whether Slack remains the right choice is
> something we can debate. It was really the only feasible choice that
> was available to us at the time we (OSM US) felt the need for a better
> platform for conversations. Slack has done its job as a for-profit
> non-open company well in the sense that we're somewhat locked in
> now. I dislike the fact that it is a walled garden, and becoming more
> so, as much as anyone who values free and open data and software. If
> there is a practical way to improve that situation, we should pursue
> it.
>
> Finally, please stop your unpleasant trolling, it has no place in OSM.

Slack is a company with terms some don't like.  People should not have
to enter into a contract with some random company to participate in OSM.

I for one am not on the osmf-us slack, and am likely to continue not
being on it.  So "everyone is on it" is demonstrably false.

Another issue is that we are building open data, and open data and open
source go hand in hand philosophically.  So it is not surprising that
members of the OSM community object to proprietary communications
systems.  It is surprising that a non-trivial number of OSM people think
proprietary communication systems are ok.

There is matrix; I haven't tried that, and I've heard positive reports
about self-hosted mattermost.

Another possibility, which might fix the terms issue but not the
proprietary issue, would be for OSMF-US to enter into an agreement with
Slack, Inc. in such a way that OSM people do not have to enter into a
contract, much as if they were employees.