From something I wrote in January 2016 (just one concern of many):
"Reasons Not to Use Slack for Free Software Development"
https://pdfernhout.net/reasons-not-to-use-slack-for-free-sof...
"Slack requires signing up and agreeing with a long Terms of Service (TOS); the TOS can be changed at any time, and historically such TOS have changed for the worse over time for other services once a lot of users adopt the service and become locked in by inertia and interlocking usages with other groups."
I guess I did not explain that clearly enough in the essay. The issue was not using Slack in itself. I've unfortunately had to use a bunch of proprietary tools and hardware over the years, and in fact (unfortunately) I use Slack where I work now. The issue was that Automattic, the company behind the FOSS WordPress software, was moving from open solutions to use proprietary Slack. That included moving away from FOSS ones they made themselves in-house like o2 ( https://github.com/Automattic/o2 ). And that disappointing choice by Automattic to embrace proprietary communications tools seemed in conflict with my hope to have made WordPress into a better FOSS communications platform while working there. I also did not feel it boded well for the company itself -- since Automattic seemed to be narrowing its business ideals from supporting and expanding the single biggest FOSS communications platform on Earth in terms of hosting much of the web to becoming essentially just another WIX competitor.
