Open Stack

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Pančur, Matjaž
<Matjaz.Pancur at fri.uni-lj.si> wrote:
> Blair,
>
> True, setting up an IRC bouncer is out of scope for a lot of non-technical users, we need a simple solution, accessible over a web browser.
>
> For IRC, Irccloud.com is a candidate, but it is not free/opensource.

When I suggested IRC cloud earlier, I was not aware of the limitations
with regards to persistence on the free tier.  I do not think it's the
right place to point people, as you do end up having to pay $5/month
for an experience that is any better than just running a local client.

> What about Shout and/or The Lounge (https://thelounge.github.io)? Looking at their demo, its simple enough for everyone to use and we still get to use IRC.
>
> Maybe someone from the Foundation (Tom? David?) can check the possibility of hosting The Lounge (or something similar) on the OpenStack infra? I guess most devs/ops/power users will still prefer their own clients/setups, so it wouldn’t even be a high traffic workload...

I completely agree that setting up a bouncer is out of scope for most
non-tech users.  I had experimented with automating something close
(weechat client in a container, and connecting to that with a web
browser over SSL using Glowing Bear).  Even that though has enough
steps the user has to take to make it a non-starter.

I had looked at Shout-IRC a while back but found the progress on
resolving issues was too slow.  I did not realize it had already been
forked (The Lounge), and that looks like a much healthier project.

At the summit I volunteered to work with the OpenStack Infra team to
explore how we could provide a hosted IRC gateway like this for users
that are interested in it.  Given this thread, I think it's worth
experimenting with offering instance of The Lounge for anyone
interested.  This would definitely be an experiment though, as the
long term stability is not clear and we have the administrative side
of things to work out as well.

Unless I hear any strong objections or reasons to not even start, I'll
get to work on this soon and will provide further updates on this
mailing list.

-Christopher (docaedo on IRC)


> --Matjaz
>
>> On 02 May 2016, at 07:39, Blair Bethwaite <blair.bethwaite at monash.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I think the contents of this conversation already nicely summarise why
>> IRC is a less than ideal choice for general-purpose collaboration.
>> It's fine for devs/ops, e.g., if you have an always on server and
>> spend a good portion of your waking life connected to its terminal.
>> But anything in this space that requires a guide to get started with
>> has, IMHO, just fallen at the first hurdle - you do not want any
>> barrier to entry at this point in the process.
>>
>> Personally I am perfectly happy using IRC, that is, I was after I
>> managed to work my way through getting a bouncer set up (a non-trivial
>> and jargon filled process, even for someone technical). But because
>> all my immediate work comms now happen in Slack I only ever connect to
>> IRC if I want to try and directly contact someone else.
>>
>> I understand aversion to Slack or any other paid service for that
>> matter. So perhaps the foundation should be considering running a FOSS
>> hosted collaboration-suite/Slack alternative? As I said earlier, I
>> expect this problem will only compound moving forward.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> On 2 May 2016 at 02:46, Pančur, Matjaž <Matjaz.Pancur at fri.uni-lj.si> wrote:
>>> Christoper,
>>>
>>>> On 01 May 2016, at 17:28, Christopher Aedo <doc at aedo.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for sharing this - it might make sense to expand this with a
>>>> third section for people who do not want to install any software
>>>> locally in order to provide a user experience similar to Slack.  Using
>>>
>>> Yes, I agree. This is also important for (unlucky) users that can’t install anything at all on their laptops unless their IT approve it first. Please do submit a patch for this. I can help if you need any guidance for the process.
>>>
>>>> something like the free tier of IRCCloud would also allow for a
>>>> presence on IRC even when the user is offline.  The lack of persistent
>>>> presence is one thing the existing docs miss, which ends up
>>>> encouraging the use of IRC as a short term real-time communication
>>>> method when it can easily be used to provide something between the
>>>> immediacy of an instant-messaging client and the slow-speed of email.
>>>> This is what Slack gets right, and why it's become such a popular
>>>> choice.  Unfortunately Slack is far from open and has significant
>>>> scale limitations, so it would be a bad choice for the community.  The
>>>> IRC integration is also severely limited, so suggesting working groups
>>>> move to slack + IRC will not serve the purpose of integrating all our
>>>> different groups :)
>>>> My intention is to provide guidance for those who are comfortable with
>>>> Slack, but not prepared to install a local IRC client.  I believe a
>>>> free hosted solution can work very much like Slack without encouraging
>>>> a move to a whole new channel of communication which not be adopted by
>>>> the community at large.
>>>
>>> I agree with you that persistent presence on IRC is a nice feature. Not so sure about IRCCloud though. It’s free tier has only 2 hours of persistent connection after a user’s inactivity.
>>>
>>> There are many similar solutions (for the “no install necessary” web IRC client part at least), some are also OpenSource, like kiwiirc.com, webchat.freenode.net, etc. Maybe we can include them in the text?
>>> Or, for more advanced users, include steps necessary to use one of the (free?) bouncer services?
>>>
>>> Matjaz
>>>
>>>> -Christopher
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> User-committee mailing list
>>> User-committee at lists.openstack.org
>>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/user-committee
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Blair Bethwaite
>> HPC Consultant (eResearch) -
>> Monash eResearch Centre (https://platforms.monash.edu/eresearch/)
>> R&D, System Admin, Cloud & Grid support specialist -
>> Monash eScience & Grid Engineering Lab (http://www.messagelab.monash.edu.au/)
>> Mobile: 0439-545-002
>> Office: +61 3-9903-2800
>