Should OpenMRS use Atlassian HipChat?

Development
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Has the Infrastructure team discussed using Hipchat?

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We did some experiments with HipChat when they were acquired by Atlassian in 2012. We want to continue offering a real-time chat solution for the community, but only one to prevent fragmentation. Our OpenMRS.org infra team continually looks at alternatives to IRC. Our evaluation criteria so far has been the following:

  1. Zero cost to license.
  2. Some aspect of chat available to all guests without OpenMRS ID.
  3. Full account/log-in integration with OpenMRS ID.
  4. It should be platform-agnostic, and usable by people with a web browser, or with installable applications (preferably on all major desktop and mobile operating systems).
  5. It should be accessible using free and open source software, and offer open standards to fully communicate with others.
  6. It should be highly reliable and available without a required dependency on other OpenMRS.org infrastructure, in the event of catastrophic infrastructure outages.
  7. All content should be log-able and exportable indefinitely.

As HipChat stands today, the Atlassian-hosted version satisfies all but #3. The self-hosted version satisfies all but #6. So it’s probably the most promising commercial alternative to IRC for us that’s on the market right now. We will continue evaluating.

Also, if anyone wants an account to try out the hosted version of HipChat, please send me a personal message here on Talk and I’ll be happy to provide a link. :smile:

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HipChat versus IRC HipChat and IRC ftw!

:white_check_mark: 1. Zero cost to license. :white_check_mark: 2. Some aspect of chat available to all guests without OpenMRS ID. :white_check_mark: 3. Full account/log-in integration with OpenMRS ID. :white_check_mark: 4. It should be platform-agnostic, and usable by people with a web browser, or with installable applications (preferably on all major desktop and mobile operating systems). :white_check_mark: 5. It should be accessible using free and open source software, and offer open standards to fully communicate with others. :white_check_mark: 6. It should be highly reliable and available without a required dependency on other OpenMRS.org infrastructure, in the event of catastrophic infrastructure outages. :white_check_mark: 7. All content should be log-able and exportable indefinitely.

Did somebody say BitlBee? :bee: :smile:

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BitlBee would require us to install it and run it, and the net result is really no different than what Slack offers with its built-in IRC server.

Personally I think some solid tech convergence will happen in the next year or so given the skyrocketing valuations of companies like slack and the mission critical need for consistently rendered meme images inline with chat. :wink:

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