Citing Its Values, Ethereum’s Status Drops Slack For Own Service

September 14, 2018 10:37 PM

Status recently announced it would discontinue using the workflow and messaging app Slack. According to Chad Jackson, product manager at Status, using Slack violates “pretty much all” of the group’s principles, including “privacy, security, transparency, decentralization, inclusivity, [and] openness.”

Although Jackson indicated that “Slack has been good to” the team, using the app is “gruesome” because it is, ironically, building an alternative service. That alternative is the Status Desktop Dapp, which is “almost ready … once a few rough edges are smoothed out.”

Jackson noted that beta v0.10.0 of the Dapp is launching in the next few weeks, marking the first iteration of the software that would be “a reliable and capable replacement to Slack.” Status’ Desktop crew is expected to migrate exclusively to the Dapp, whereas other teams are encouraged to partially or fully use the service.

By the time most of the organization’s members are using Status Desktop, Jackson said they could set a 30-day deadline to migrate workflows and finally “say goodbye to Slack … and live our values!” He did note, however, that they would “need to find alternatives to Slack bots, private groups, and other Slack-centric features” that the team uses.

Status will be the first organization to use the Status service, though it is currently working on integration with Riot, another collaboration and workflow alternative. After integration with these two groups, Status looks to move “forward with new improvements.”

This is not the first time Status or another blockchain-based group has parted ways with a centralized service provider due to differences in values. Status has mostly stopped using Medium and created its own blogging portal instead. Another project, Aragon, has also left Medium due to concerns over censorship.

Besides the hullabaloo with Slack, the mobile Dapp browsing provider has made recent strides within the cryptospace. On August 1, the team announced its work on Nimbus, a sharding client written in the Nim programming language. A little later, on August 7, ETHNews reported that Status had partnered with the developers of Nim, providing them with funding and resources.

Daniel Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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