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Slack Is Shutting Down Its IRC Gateway (slack.help)

Posted by msmash on from the end-of-road dept.

Slack, a team collaboration communication service, has updated its IRC support page to note that it is ending support for IRC on its platform: Unfortunately, support for gateways is ending. Starting on May 15th, it will no longer be possible to connect to Slack using the IRC and XMPP gateways. In another support page, which requires you to log in to one of your Slack groups, the company elaborates: As Slack has evolved over the years, we've built features and capabilities -- like Shared Channels, Threads, and emoji reactions (to name a few) -- that the IRC and XMPP gateways aren't able to handle. Our priority is to provide a secure and high-quality experience across all platforms, and so the time has come to close the gateways.

Please note that the gateways will be closed according to the following schedule: March 6, 2018: No longer available to newly-created workspaces; April 3, 2018: Removed from workspaces where they're not in use; May 15, 2018: Closed for all remaining workspaces.

17 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. It's one of the criteria my company used... by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole IRC and XMPP compatibility of Slack was used as an argument to placate the old timers at my company.

    Mostly I've found that people waste too much time making custom emoji and spend too little time working out real business due to the security and retention policies inherent in the Slack services.

    Hopefully this can trigger some businesses to walk away from this seemingly useless tool.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:It's one of the criteria my company used... by rnturn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Another garden being walled off.

      I've been pushing for a return to mailing lists (listserv-type applications like Mailman, etc.) because of garbage like this. They ain't as fancy but the bells and whistles that Slack/Hipchat/etc. bring aren't really all that useful, are they? Emojis? Who gives a crap? You can't figure out what ":^)" or ":^(" means? Really?

      --
      CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  2. TLDR; by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We want to support more superfluous shiny garbage and supporting IRC might remind people they don't need this bullshit.

    1. Re:TLDR; by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Might also remind them that Slack owns what you send them.

  3. Thats the point of the gateway.... by mtmra70 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are shutting down the gateway because their system is more advanced than IRC and other XMPP clients? The entire point of the gateway is to allow two disparate systems to work with each other, even with limited features.

    1. Re:Thats the point of the gateway.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      They are shooting down the gateway because it colides with their business case ("locking people into our shit")...

  4. Obligatory xkcd by plloi · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://xkcd.com/1782/

    1. Re:Obligatory xkcd by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      In other news, operating systems developed nearly exclusively over IRC and mailing lists have taken over everything but desktops and phones, with the latter mostly using components (such as kernel) developed this way as well.

      I don't care what means of communication millenials use, software written by them rarely keeps being maintained for as long as six months anyway. Then, they switch to yet another video-over-twitter-over-facebook thingy while making another node.js framework that won't last.

      In unrelated news, on 2017-11-20 I was first told I have a grey hair in my beard, at age of 39 years 7 months.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:Obligatory xkcd by DarkRookie · · Score: 2

      Heyheyheyheyhey
      Dont lump all of us millenials together.
      I am labeled that and cannot stand Slack, Discord, modern design paradigms, webapps, Facebook, snapchat, or the like. I have a cell phone that does SMS and MMS. All my friends have phones.
      Hell, I give 1 star reviews to Android apps that use Material Design 9 times outta 10.

      --
      The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
    3. Re:Obligatory xkcd by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      Dont lump all of us millenials together.

      Apologies! Age doesn't imply wisdom.

      I give 1 star reviews to Android apps that use Material Design 9 times outta 10.

      Hell yeah, it's not just old folks that agree these UI designs are objectively worse. But hey, if you say CSD is worse than Hitler, you have a beer on me (collectable only in person).

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  5. Is it still a resource hog? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the big reasons to use the gateway was simple - the web client, the node.js "app" and all that were resource hogs. Probably one of the few chat things that needs an i7 with 32GB of RAM just to use it.

    Had one project where I was forced to use it, and was so dismayed when it seemed to consume half of one processor core and a ton of RAM. OF course, the IRC client takes 0% most of the time and barely any memory at all

    It doesn't have to be this way, since Discord offers similar features, and yet happily consumes barely any processor and memory.

  6. I just wonder.... by Parker+Lewis · · Score: 2

    ... if Slack is not based on XMPP itself.

  7. crap by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 2

    crap crap crapity crap.

    Dang slack app is a wretched reeking steaming pile. Getting stuck with slack has been tolerable with the XMPP gateway. Bleah.

    I want information density. Text, that I can relegate to one side of the screen. Not a whole page taken up with pretty-pretty whitespace and formatting diddlypoo.

  8. Slack Mismanagement by jwymanm · · Score: 2

    Slack is progressively getting to be a company that is just going down the corporate toilet. Discord is eating its lunch but I don't think Slack even knows what its lunch is anymore. It doesn't give a crap about 99% of the market.. it keeps getting smaller and smaller and yet more and more resource intensive. No developments have helped it and it is hell bent on alienating its own usage by not changing archaic price models or anything. Total crap.

  9. Feature not a bug by RonVNX · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, most of us consider lack of emoji support a feature not a bug.

  10. Since when do Electron apps not hog RAM. by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Discord offers similar features, and yet happily consumes barely any processor and memory.

    Since when? Discord's downloadable client is an Electron application, and last time I tried it (on Debian), its three Chromium processes combined took 365 MB. Skype's downloadable client for Linux also uses Electron and also takes hundreds of megabytes of RAM.

  11. Self-Host. Problem solved. by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 3, Interesting
    At the risk of committing heresy in public: I actually kind of like the Slack-style chat functionality.

    I hate the idea of letting some third party proprietary host (like Slack) decide how and when it should work for me, though.

    Personally, I'm running a Rocket.Chat instance - very Slack-like (and "Slack-compatible" if you have any bots you've developed for Slack's API that you want to use). Mattermost is another, similar option.

    --
    Hacker Public Radio is our Friend