Personally I’d much prefer to use Matrix because it’s our own. I think that we’re building a commons economy, and in cases like this where commons tooling is such a low hanging fruit, I really think we should take it?
Are there any good reasons to use Slack, other than that lots of people know what it is?
The Matrix channel is already reasonably active. I guess the worst-case scenario is having two separate CoTech channels
I think so… our domain doesn’t seem to be in that second list so we still don’t have access 
I’ve added Code Operative’s domain, the full list of domains on the allow list for email signup for the CoTech members group here and for the slack channel
3xe.co.uk,agile.coop,animorph.coop,blake.house,calverts.coop,commonknowledge.coop,creative.coop,formandfunction.coop,foundersandcoders.com,gildedsplinters.coop,glowboxdesign.co.uk,gofreerange.com,goodpraxis.uk,infactcoop.com,jarrow-insights.co,mc3.coop,mediablazehosts.coop,mediaco-op.net,netuxo.co.uk,open-ecommerce.org,outlandish.com,paperrhino.co.uk,sleuth.coop,uniteddiversity.coop,wave.coop,weareopen.coop,webarchitects.coop,web.coop,opendataservices.coop,aptivate.org,dcdc.io,alpha.coop,secure.coop,tableflip.io,dotproject.coop,goodpraxis.coop,changelab.io,solidarityeconomy.coop,dev.ngo,yvant.coop,webarchitects.co.uk,code-operative.co.uk
I agree that having our own open source and self hosted chat platform would be better than using Slack.
We don’t use Slack at Animorph but the session held at the gathering last week indicated that most of the people do use it. There was more interest in coordinating different channels for various needs instead of introducing new services or trying to coerce people into a specific tool.
On the second day of the gathering we started working on mapping needs based on tasks/actions people are looking to engage with. We created a rough diagram @Tucker agreed to improve on and we also made a start on an onboarding tool for people based on their intentions: https://connect.coops.tech/
The Infra page will also benefit from some edits.
Seems like there are ways for people to connect with Slack without having one…
Hopefully the instant messaging channels can converge in some way and become easier to decipher!
It’d be lovely to have everyone using a free-r alternative to slack, but it’d also be lovely to have everyone collaborating and communicating, so I probably wouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. I like the idea of bridging the different worlds, so thank you to everyone who works to make that happen. I’d also encourage people to cross-post interesting conversations that are happening here, on slack, or matrix.
@chris - could you add @datacontentreach.co too?
I’m another +1 for Slack as we already use it for ourselves and two clients
We’ve had Slack at WAO for ages and ages, but I think there’s a renewed impetus to experiment with stuff which, as @calummackervoy says, helps build the commons economy. I agree that this shouldn’t be at the expense of getting things done, but Matrix is not difficult.
BTW, I don’t think it’s obvious from this thread, so for those looking for Matrix it’s here: #cooptech:autonomic.zone
(Matrix is decentralised so you’ll either need to self-host or choose a provider such as Element)
I’d love a bridge between element/slack…
Happy for either to be used if there’s a stronger pressence on one or the other…
I mainly wanted access to the slack as most of the CoTech gathering pictures had been posted on there.
Maybe we need another simpling communications session so that the wider network can have their say?
Yea im more than happy to look at the diagram from a design perspective. What’s the best format to create it in? Is it going to sit on the Co-tech site as a flat image or be live text etc?
Slack is proprietary and centralized. That means that people who want to
participate in CoTech would need to enter into an exploitative
relationship with a specific company (that is ofc aiming to use whatever
means to profit).
That also means that people and the collective would be at the mercy of
whatever happens to slack, either the tool or the company. Time and time
again, people and organizations have compromised on “easy and practical”
only to later be forced to move to something else - because the thing
was sold, closed up, their rules changed, started demanding payed plans,
etc.
In my view, compromising on autonomy is a recipe for disaster in the
longer term and also excludes people, right from the start.
To be clear: a bridge to slack would not compromise on autonomy, just on
the security of the communications (as there end to end encryption would
not be possible and slack would have a copy of all). It would require
resources and work also, but it could be an acceptable tradeoff.
Stuff like access to media on slack could be addressed some other way,
though - probably enough to export it and put it up somewhere, with
access for people in those conversations.
Sorry for the delay, have done.
I agree that we should really be running our own Rocket.chat / Mattermost / whatever chat server and it is something I’d like to have up and running at some point, together with SSO, so we would only need one account for this site and all our other services, however my current feeling is that I’d like to wait to see how things go with workers.coop and if CoTech does merge into the new federation as the IT sector then it would probably make most sense to use a workers.coop SSO and self-hosted chat solution – that is a long way of saying it is on the back-burner for now.
see also
all their bridges are open source and on their gitlab
I know it’s not your style, but for others looking for something like this. the best solution I’ve found is Cloudron.
And for the more command line and 100% foss inclined see also https://coopcloud.tech/
Indeed, using Docker to install and manage services on a server is horrible compared to using Ansible to directly install and configure services, we do however use Docker for Discourse, Mailcow and GitLab runner servers as this is a requirement of the projects and I can see the point of Kubernetes for really big applications.
There is a new beta Discourse chat plugin and I’ve just had a quick play with it and it looks promising so I’m going to enable it here for just members of the CoTech group, if that is possible…
That seems to work, I added the chat plugin with this commit, All Members (users with a CoTech flair overlaid on their user icon) have access and I’ve created a CoTech chat channel — drop by and say hi!
If anyone wants to pick up the technical work of bridging slack <-> matrix I can support on getting a proposal into the CoTech fund so there is budget. We have some bridging already wired up in our synapse co-op cloud recipe, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to add slack as well. lemme know 
I might be interested in this, I’ve been meaning to learn a bit more about hosting a Matrix server and it could be a good way to do it. It’s not a task that I’ve done before but the docs look friendly enough
I know that @KingMob also recently got a chatbot working between WhatsApp and Matrix, you might be interested in this?
