Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack
Whatever happened to matrix.org&#x2F;vector&#x2F;riot.im&#x2F;element.io? (side note: most confusing branding ever :-&#x2F;). Element seemed to be picking up some momentum a few months back. There was recent news that they acquired gitter too [1].  These days I only hear about slack exodus and discord this and discord that, though.<p>If I get it right, from all the group messengers that appeared around 6 years ago, the only one with an open protocol seems to be Matrix, but it hasn&#x27;t proven to be to their advantage, apparently. Only Element, Zulip and Mattermost are open source?<p>Honorable mention: IRCCloud was a &quot;hot thing&quot; for a while, but it seems like it wasn&#x27;t enough to revitalize IRC. [2]<p>--<p>Appendix, initial releases:<p>* Slack: August 2013; 7 years ago<p>* Discord: May 13, 2015; 5 years ago<p>* Mattermost: October 2, 2015; 5 years ago<p>* Zulip: ca 2014, at least 5&#x2F;6 years ago?<p>* Matrix protocol: ca September 2014; 6 years ago<p>* vector&#x2F;riot&#x2F;element: ca September 2016, 4 years ago<p>--<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;30&#x2F;element-acquires-gitter-to-get-more-developers-on-board-with-the-open-matrix-messaging-protocol&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;09&#x2F;30&#x2F;element-acquires-gitter-to...</a><p>2: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.irccloud.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.irccloud.com&#x2F;</a>