
Saying Goodbye to Slack’s IRC and XMPP Gateways - alexandernst
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.<p>We know this may affect your workflow in ways that are frustrating or disruptive, and we’re here to help and answer questions. Thank you in advance for making this transition with us.<p>Please note that the gateways will be closed according to the following schedule:<p>* March 6, 2018: No longer available to newly-created workspaces<p>* April 3, 2018: Removed from workspaces where they’re not in use<p>* May 15, 2018: Closed for all remaining workspaces<p>If your workspace currently uses gateways, your experience won’t change until May 15th. But we encourage you to prepare for the transition soon. Feel free to contact our support team for help.
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loeg
> Our priority is to provide a secure and high-quality experience across all
> platforms, and so the time has come to close the gateways.

The IRC gateway was the only way I was interacting with Slack. If it's gone,
I'll just stop using Slack. That's ok, but is not exactly providing me a
"high-quality" experience. (Meanwhile: IRC clients are capable of connecting
to servers with TLS and authenticating certificates in the same manner as web
browsers. So I'm not sure about the "secure" criticism either.)

Is there an API that _will_ continue to be available going forward that 3rd
party software can interact with?

~~~
singingfish
weechat has a slack api based plugin [https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-
slack](https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack)

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troydavis
It looks like Slack’s page about this shut down is only available when logged
in:
[https://my.slack.com/account/gateways](https://my.slack.com/account/gateways)
(linked to from [https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP)).

At least as of this comment, Slack’s blog and status site don’t say anything.
It seems like this warrants at least a post on the blog, but maybe that’s
coming later today.

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rinon
I'm very disappointed in this change. Having communication centralized in one
place is important to me, and this means I cannot centralize on open,
federated protocols.

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pmlnr
> XMPP gateways aren’t able to handle

Yeah, sure. Though I only do bets in chocolate or beer, I do bet XMPP has some
kind of extension built for it already, you just don't want to support it.

We so needed another walled garden of communication platforms.

~~~
SamWhited
It does (though these particular three I don't know how common they are);
Probably in IRCv3 too for all I know.

UPDATE: changed because I read this wrong; but the answer is still "yes, this
would have been relatively easy for them to do".

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alexandernst
I couldn't find any news about this, and I'm not really sure when they
announced it, but I just noticed it so I'm posting it here.

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cro
WeeChat with the wee-slack plugin is pretty good ([https://github.com/wee-
slack/wee-slack](https://github.com/wee-slack/wee-slack)). That doesn't help
folks that don't use WeeChat though.

I have been investigating Riot/Matrix lately. One of the things that really
bothers me about the Slack desktop client is its lack of multiple windows.
Participating in more than one conversation at a time is a flurry of
clicks/keystrokes to keep up. Unfortunately the Riot client doesn't appear to
have multiple windows either and the status of the Slack gateway is somewhat
unclear.

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teeray
Is anyone aware of a self-hosted alternative?

~~~
juliob
You mean something like mattermost.com ?

~~~
teeray
I meant more of a direct replacement of the Slack IRC gateway rather than a
replacement of Slack itself.

~~~
SamWhited
I've heard that using Slack with biboumi as a gateway is better than their
gateway ever was, but can't say myself. I'd be curious to get your experience
if you try it.

~~~
loeg
Does that help if they're also turning off the XMPP gateway?

~~~
SamWhited
I thought biboumi also supported Slack natively, but I might have been mixing
it up with one of the others. Spectrum maybe? "I've always heard that using a
third party gateway which uses the Slack API to communicate with slack is a
better experience" is probably what I should have said.

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james_pm
The full news (shown above) is tucked behind a your Slack login and linked
from this page: [https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/201727913-Connect-t...](https://get.slack.help/hc/en-
us/articles/201727913-Connect-to-Slack-over-IRC-and-XMPP)

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boomboxnation
Another vote for WeeChat an the Slack plugin. Which utilizes the Slack API (so
you are kind of out on your butt if one of your slack's won't allow you to get
a token) Weechat is a bit of work to get it working/looking the way you want,
but it's worth it.

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juliob
This could be an alternative solution: [https://github.com/ekmartin/slack-
irc](https://github.com/ekmartin/slack-irc)

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superkuh
RIP Slack. You followed the Microsoft strategy all the way to the end.
Embrace, extend... but this extinguish will only be of Slack itself.

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haasn
This is what you get for using Slack. Meanwhile, IRC still works fine.

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atoponce
Whelp, goodbye Slack, hello Mattermost.

~~~
atoponce
The MOTD I got in my IRC client:

[https://ae7.st/pb/?6cb6e86dc5d27158#SKb8x+tKyazabJWuFaGjURqe...](https://ae7.st/pb/?6cb6e86dc5d27158#SKb8x+tKyazabJWuFaGjURqe3Thm1xncAVxNGTOKIas=)

