A couple of points here.

1. Slack is centralized. When you control the hub, you control the protocol. Which makes it easier to modify and change. You don't have to worry about people whining that you broke their client if you change the server. They control the hub and the spokes.

2. Slack is centralized. (I feel that's important). There are what 1M IRC servers (if you count all the internal company servers) and 20M clients in existence. You can't just change a popular protocol overnight without people complaining that you broke a client.

3. Slack is ... you guessed it ... centralized. IRC has a peer to peer chat feature (that doesn't go through the server). This is ironically, the way file transfers happen on IRC too. It's also what makes people able to host IRC servers without paying a huge bandwidth bill, nor get sued when their server is used to transmit Game of Thrones.

4. Slack is ... you heard it .. centralized. Messages must go through slack's servers. For people concerned about privacy, it makes it an easy target for a National Security Letter.

5. Slack is ... like a broken record ... centralized. Today I was told to not send proprietary information on it, because my company doesn't have an on premises hosted slack. Can any one self host slack?

6. Why haven't you looked into Mattermost, if you're tired of irc?

You know, it's not that open source devs are elitist, but they have a history of writing code for people that are the 10% technically elite. It's not that they're smugly arrogant, but rather, IRC does the job they need it to. So is there really any reason to change it? No. Just like there's also no need to put a python interpreter in the linux kernel. Would it make things easier for the average user to write a device driver? Possibly, I don't know? Is it worth the headaches of maintaining a python interpreter in the kernel? No.

In fact, the FOSS devs I know could probably care less about this holy war. Yes, slack is a great tool, and in some cases would work better than IRC. In other cases they would say IRC would work better than slack. Oh, did I mention they don't see it as a holy war in the first place?

BitTorrent is decentralized with lots of clients and tons of users. Users of GUI clients usually download a Torrent file, see what files they're getting, uncheck any they don't want, hit OK, wait a while, and stop it when finished. Change the download directory in preferences like most of their other apps but has sensible default usually. Opposite of all your points about Slack yet still super-easy-to-use due to good UX.

See how your centralization point was pushing your ideology instead of apparent claim that Slack was only good due to centralization?

"You know, it's not that open source devs are elitist, but they have a history of writing code for people that are the 10% technically elite. It's not that they're smugly arrogant, but rather, IRC does the job they need it to."

Oh no, he's right. Ask them to change anything to something easier. It took quite a while to get the GUI clients that simplified key steps. They were insistent on forcing people to learn and memorize commands instead of menus with obvious options. They certainly could've improved look-ups and had "save to favorites" earlier in usable form. They didn't care because they were elitist.

Now, I'd consider a different explanation if tech people weren't doing same thing for UNIX commands, GUI configuration, installers, incomprehensible-by-default text editors, everything is a command line argument instead of sane menus of text, and so on. The amount of mental load it took to use those systems and apps vs Windows or Mac is a huge chunk of why they dominate the desktop.

I recall the pain of switching to Linux from Windows. Everything that was simple or easy to find just clicking around took thought in Linux. I knew that was unnecessary because my previous supplier made it unnecessary by putting in work. I later saw Apple do the same for network configuration, backups, and getting apps mostly safely. Elitists are still bragging about their commands, ports, and so on while known UX or foundational issues never get fixed.

"See how your centralization point was pushing your ideology instead of apparent claim that Slack was only good due to centralization?"

No. I don't have an ideology here. Just facts I'm sharing.

"They didn't care because they were elitist."

Do you have proof of that so called elitism? Maybe they didn't want to get into a holy-war. Maybe they didn't want to break a 30 year old protocol.

I think, they didn't care because they just simply didn't care. Don't confuse elitism for general apathy.

Also, have you looked at Mattermost?

"Do you have proof of that so called elitism?"

They get into holy wars, break stuff, and take action regularly. So there goes three reasons. What they will do is call people idiots or lazy if they complain about poor UX. Or remind them how you only do (arcane steps here) to accomplish the task so why the fuss?

It's hard to absolutely prove elitism over all other things that go on in a person's head. However, that kind of behavior resembles elitism. Hell, many such people even made memes like "Elitist Linux Asshat" to rub others' noses in it. Starts to get harder to deny their ego and aire of superiority is involved at that point.

I assume you've read this excellent piece: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

Centralization is a massive advantage in the UX area. Finding a way to achieve the same agility and coordination in decentralized systems is an open problem.

Pretending the problem does not exist is not how to solve it, nor is moralizing. (Not a response to you per se, just in general.)

I've not read that piece. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm not pretending the problem doesn't exist. I'm just asking if there is a problem in the first place.

So what's the problem exactly?

1) That people are moving from slack to irc? 2) That slack isn't open source? 3) That slack is easier to use and more fun than irc?

Lst's say all those are true. What damage does those things cause?

1) This will kill open source

I don't think so. Github is closed source, and people are developing all kinds of open source applications on it.

2. People will be less likely to use IRC

Yes, I believe this to be a true statement. But this has been true for a while since the days of ICQ.

3. This will kill IRC.

Perhaps. Maybe IRC should die if it can't adapt. Sent to the dustbin of history like NNTP.

4. People develop software around a closed platform.

Well, so MacOS is a closed platform. People still write software for it.

"The second is that many in FOSS view mastery of arcane systems as a status symbol and have active contempt for any effort to make systems easier to use or more approachable"

This x 10. It's the reason Linux was and is so behind on the desktop. It's reason IRC with its cute commands fell behind IM, text, and Slack. It's why Tresys makes money on those who otherwise wouldnt touch SELinux. Probably why many people didnt do backups before specific, usable programs on Windows and Time Machine on Mac. Why they didnt share files so much on FTP but are all over Dropbox and SendThisFile.

It's a huge problem they need to tackle immediately. Each thing contributing to bad UX needs to be knocked out of the equation. In many cases, esp configuration files, apathy is usually the reason instead of difficulty.

It's also related to the lack of diversity in tech. Arcane complexity affords an easy way to exclude people from the club in a passive-aggressive indirect way. It's similar to how some religions use complicated systems of ritual, symbol, dietary restriction, etc. to determine who is 'in' and who is 'out'.

The thing is there's nothing wrong with this per se. If the goal is to create a place where geeks can show off to other geeks, that's totally cool. But don't get angry or self-righteous when people who are not in an elitist exclusionary club do not use the tools of that club but instead choose 'mainstream' options like Slack, Facebook, etc. After all you are intentionally making it hard for them to use your tools. The complexity and arcana are screaming "go away! this is not for you!"

I've personally grown to loathe arcane complexity for its own sake and see it as a sign not of "elite hax0r skillz" but of inferior intelligence and laziness. True genius simplifies, explains, clarifies, and creates things that are elegant because that is harder. Simplicity requires so much more effort and intelligence than complexity.

A big part of the issue is just that UX and dev are two separate specialties, and while some people can do both, there's no clear place in most open source project for someone whose primary contribution is to provide designs for someone else to implement.

The reason is partly that open source projects are a hell of lot of work for their owners, even without UX experts handing them detailed specifications. And it's partly that UX details often individually seem trivial, even though their accumulated weight can make the difference between a good project and a great one.

Quite agreed. The view that to be an authentic contributor to OSS, I need to use only OSS tools makes no sense to me. It's not even about my time (although that's part of it), it's about using the best tool for the job. If that tool happens to be closed-source, so be it.

There's been no "fall of open source." If anything, OSS is increasingly the default for tools. And old, closed source tools are being opened up--for example, Microsoft's massive releases of source for their dev tools.

UI/UX work is fun, for the right personality. But it tends to be under-appreciated and it's often a ton of small things rather than big things you can point to. So maybe steady employment is more conducive to this work than the night-time obsessions and consulting work that typically fuel FOSS.

I guess the way to test your theory would be to look at users who had IRC to use and nothing else -- no choice.

The truth I believe is that users adapt to whatever software they must use.

Before the "UI/UX" hype began, before there was Javascript, a long time ago, not as many people had to use computers. It was optional. Many people were computer illiterate and it had little to no impact on their life.

Now today, we all know that users no longer have to learn about the command line or configuration files. Everything has been made very easy to fall into. Click or touch an area of a screen and something happens. Great.

But... what I see many commenters fail to recognize is that the increase in computer usage since those times has little to do with interfaces and everything to do with the need for everyone in a civilized society to use computers. Because today computers and computer networks are much more powerful, and more useful. They have become a necessary part of everyday life for the civilized world.

No one in these societies can claim computer illiteracy anymore.

So users learn what they have to in order to get by. This was the same in the 1990's as it is today. Today the amount of learning required to use a computer is almost nil.

But if a user, whether in 1992 or in 2016, had to use a computer out of necessity, and the commmand line was the only way to control the computer, you can bet they would learn it. Technical ability nothwithstanding.

I have seen this with my own eyes. A lot of the talk about what users want and don't want, or what they will and will not do is all in the mind of the developer.

The truth is people today are forced to use computers. They'll use what they are given. And no user is ever forced to learn to use the command line in order to use (be used by) a computer.

But if today's users were forced, they could do it. And they would do it because use of a computer has become a necessity.

Also, people born after 1993 have no fear of computers. They'll learn anything that is put in front of them. It just so happens that what is put before them is a boatload of "UI/UX" hype. They take the bait - hook, line and sinker. No surprise.

Computer usage has changed since the birth of IRC but it has nothing to do with "UI/UX". There was a time when people in the civilized world could abstain from using a computer; that time has passed.