Mixxx is open-source DJing software built by a community of passionate DJs and programmers from all over the world. In their nights and weekends, and without centralized planning or deadlines, they’ve created free software that rivals commercial alternatives and respects its users.
Mixxx aims to offer DJs creative freedom that can’t be found in other software. In the Mixxx community, collaboration between users and developers drives product innovation. A simple question from a user can spark a clever solution.
“Zulip has become a solid foundation of our community: a place where developers, translators, designers, and testers meet and collaborate,” core Mixxx developer Daniel Schürmann explains in a blog post occasioned by the Mixxx Zulip community reaching 3,000 members.
Needed: A platform to keep conversations organized and accessible
Founded in 2001, the Mixxx community originally communicated on a Mailman mailing list and an IRC chat channel. But by 2018, these platforms were no longer serving the community’s needs.
"As the project and number of contributors grew, we needed a platform that could keep conversations organized and accessible to everyone,” Daniel explains on the Mixxx blog. “Zulip… convinced us after a short evaluation period. Its unique thread system was the ideal solution to replace structured email threads and instant chat rooms.”
“[Zulip’s] unique thread system was the ideal solution to replace structured email threads and instant chat rooms.”
Supporting asynchronous collaboration with structure and focus
Zulip has proven perfectly suited to support Mixxx’s worldwide community: It has made collaboration easier, and community engagement has grown as a result. “Zulip works particularly well for open-source projects where many topics run in parallel, and where structure and focus are key to success,” Daniel explains.
Being able to move messages between threads helps keep conversations tidy, which is critical for a distributed volunteer community like Mixxx: “[It] makes it possible to collaborate asynchronously across time zones without missing important context,” Daniel’s writes on the blog.
“Whenever a topic drifts, we can split it into a new thread, so conversations stay focused and are easy to follow.”
The Mixxx community has dedicated channels for development, support, socializing, and introductions. New members are encouraged to introduce themselves in a dedicated topic with their name, where the community can welcome them.
Informed, but not stressed
Daniel, too, contributes to Mixxx in his spare time. Given the demands of his day job, family and friends, “I’m not the person who can always hang around in the chat,” he explains. “With Zulip, there’s no need to hang around in chat rooms to avoid missing an important conversation.”
“With Zulip, I feel informed, but not stressed by all the messages.”
— Daniel Schürmann, core Mixxx developer
Zulip’s threading model also works well for occasional participants in the community, and world-public channels make it possible to view discussions without even creating an account.
Daniel squeezes in some Mixxx time on his commute: “The smart phone app recently received a major update, and is very nice,” he says.
Creative collaboration between users and developers
A creative partnership between users and developers is core to the Mixxx development process. Zulip supports detailed, specific discussion of any problem reported by a user, with video and image uploads, syntax-highlighted code blocks, and convenient quoting functionality. Everyone can keep track of conversations in their inbox, and automatically follow topics they’ve participated in.
“Collaboration in the Mixxx Zulip community propels the creative process to the next level.”
— Evelynne Veys, core Mixxx developer
One of the best tools, built with love
Daniel uses Microsoft Teams in his day job, and greatly prefers Zulip: “You can experience that there’s a lot of love in Zulip,” he explains. From the smooth, snappy interactions, to helpful touches like global times, polls, and pronouns, it adds up.
“You can experience that there’s a lot of love in Zulip.”
— Daniel Schürmann, core Mixxx developer
Other community members feel it too: “Some new contributors who were skeptical at first later told us that they consider Zulip one of the best tools for managing communication across projects,” Daniel says.
With Zulip, the Mixxx community isn’t reliant on proprietary software built by a mega-corporation. Daniel and other community members are glad that the Mixxx community has found an excellent communication tool that also aligns with their FOSS values.
“I highly recommend Zulip to other communities… Slack is a no-go for many due to not being FLOSS, and I’m concerned about vendor lock-in if they were to stop being so generous. Slack’s threading model is much worse than Zulip’s IMO. The channels/topics flow is an incredibly intuitive way to keep track of everything that is going on.”
— RJ Ryan, core Mixxx developer
Check out our guide on using Zulip for open source, and learn how Zulip helps communities scale!