Investigate options for moving to paid tier of Slack for https://instruct-lab.slack.com/

[lhawthorn]

Problem statement:

We wish to use Slack for conversation amongst InstructLab community members.

We wish to preserve history beyond what's provided with the free Tier of Slack.

Business pricing comes in at 150 USD per user paid annually (12.50 / mo for seat license).

That cost starts getting pretty pricey pretty fast, so we need to investigate what Enterprise pricing options could exist, especially since both the employers of the founding maintainer teams, Red Hat and IBM, are both Enterprise Slack customers.

@lhawthorn will start the process to investigate what's possible from an Enterprise tier pricing perspective. It may be that Slack has some kind of deal for open source project work.

Will speak with the Red Hat OSPO Community Infrastructure team to get this started.

[nathan-weinberg]

Isn't the workspace called instruct-lab.slack.com? Or is instructlabworkspace.slack.com something different?

[jjasghar]

I believe there is an open source "free" license you can apply for via Slacks OSPO. The main problem is that it's at their discretion, so you risk having to "move" if it becomes unsustainable of Slack.

[lhawthorn]

@nathan-weinberg You are correct, fixed.

[lhawthorn]

@jjasghar Where do I go beg for the open source free license?

And yes, we are all aware of the instances of companies offering free stuff for open source projects that then mystically evaporates once that company has financial challenges, a change in corporate strategy, etc.

It is possible to export your data from a Slack workspace (assuming you are on the correct tier) and you get the history as "zip file will contain your workspace’s message history in JSON format and file links from all public channels."

I think that's an acceptable level of risk if we are intentional in our desire to use Slack as a communications vehicle. At the very least, the cost involved will be a factor in making that intentional decision.

Thanks for helping me track down where to ask for help, JJ!

[jjasghar]

I'll start poking around, but I'm betting we'll need to find someone in there.

[jjasghar]

I'm betting some projects have found their way through this process.

https://slack.com/help/articles/204368833-Apply-for-the-Slack-for-Nonprofits-discount

Maybe we try the same? Or do y'all think there's a better way?

(I used to know some DevRels at Slack, but I think they have all moved on)

[lhawthorn]

So, I would try the process you suggested @jjasghar but word on the street is it's hard for open source projects to get in that way, especially since InstructLab is not a non-profit nor is it homed in a non-profit foundation. (Though we want to move in that direction sometime, but even then we might be housed in a 501c6 industry trade group vs a 501c3 non-profit.)

We explicitly do not meet the criteria listed on that page.

I know that it is possible to bridge Slack to Matrix and use this as a means to preserve history past 90 days. Let me see if I can get some help with that route.

[jjasghar]

I mean, nothing stopping us from pivoting to matrix now, especially now that our... "restrictions" are gone.

[lhawthorn]

Bridging Slack to Matrix is against Slack's ToS. I shall go into a corner and mrph about this for awhile.

[lhawthorn]

Decision taken: paid Slack is not currently in scope, we will use mailing lists and GitHub issues for durable conversations

tl;dr: if it's information that needs to stick around a long time or a discussion about something that will set project direction, it goes on the mailing lists (forthcoming real soon now) or GitHub issues; if it's ephemeral, it's great to discuss in Slack.

In more detail: As folks have noted, we are using the free tier of Slack which means no preservation of messaging history after 30 days. This is a huge bummer if you want to make sure that project decisions and important information are preserved. Paid Slack is really expensive for an open source project that we aspire to grow to a community of many participants. So for conversations like "please review my PR" or "I need help with this specific error message", or "I just had a hallway chat at a conference with so-and-so and we're going to work on a particular and I'll follow up with an open issue," then Slack is the place. For information we need to make sure is preserved, make sure to use the mailing lists and GitHub issues extensively.

This is not something anyone needs to think too hard about, but please bear in mind you may be gently nudged at times to take a particular discussion in the project Slack workspace to GitHub issues or to the project mailing lists once they are set up.