Team Collaboration Considerations

[Jerry D <jvdelisle2@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

Some of you may recall way back when I established the gfortran IRC 
channel to facilitate collaboration on gfortran development.

I have had some discussions with a few people about advancing to newer 
technology.  One thing I have learned is that the gcc C++ team has 
adopted the Mattermost platform.  I have also used Slack and Teams.  
There are many others. The gcc IRC channel is still active. The gfortran 
IRC channel exists but is less used.

I would like suggest that gfortranners adopt one of these platforms. The 
advantages are:

 1.   We can post chat questions back and forth via mobile devices
    without having toopen and scan our emails
 2. We can share examples and files easily.
 3. Screen shot are easily exchanged.
 4. Integration with platforms such as Github.

Pros and Cons of some of the choices.  I have only looked at the Free 
options

 1. Slack has adopted some limitations on being able to go back and look
    at older posts.  Functionally it is quite good and integrates well
    with github.
 2. I looked at Element and Fractal which use the Matrix protocols. 
    Very open source, not so mature yet.
 3. Mattermost looks pretty good and was easy to set up.  The free
    version is a bit better than Slacks. GCC C++ uses it.

If we can get a concensus I would happy to get something set up .  I am 
leaning to Mattermost.  The mobile phone app is easy and the web browser 
works fine.

I do think in the long run, doing this will help everyone greatly.

Any thoughts from all?

Regards,

Jerry