[zyxley]

> There might be one -- but this is absolutely not what this and Slack are aiming to do.

That's kind of a weird statement to me, because every time I've sold a techie-type person on Slack it's been by describing it as "private IRC with persistent history and a bunch of other neat things".

[twic]

private IRC. Hence global interoperability and federation is not what this and Slack are aiming to do.

[scrollaway]

You're missing the point. Just because it's not what they're aiming to do doesn't mean the tech isn't appropriate for it.

You're commenting on their business model rather than the tech. For all you know, Slack could be planning to expand their business to hosting public chat rooms, then your comment wouldn't make any sense anymore.

[pyre]

You can already get a hacked up public chat via Slack. There's a package (which is all set to run on Heroku) that automates the process of sending an invite to the Slack organization so that anyone on the public web can do it.

I noticed this when the Bootstrap 4.0a announcement had a link inviting you to join their Slack:

> For those jamming on v4 with us, we also have a dedicated v4 Slack channel. Jump in to talk shop and work with your fellow Bootstrappers. If you haven’t yet, join our official Slack room![0].

[0] https://bootstrap-slack.herokuapp.com/

[coldtea]

The "private" part kind of gives their game away, doesn't it?

It's not meant to be an IRC replacement. That it has point to point communication, channels etc, doesn't make it IRC.

Slack is all about the default stuff it bundles with it, and the features it includes as native for work teams.