Open Sourcers Race to Build Better Versions of Slack
A hundred different chat systems mentioned here. <i>None</i> of them compatible with one another. Well, I guess a couple of them have IRC gateways, but you have to actually set those up.<p>Gee, wouldn't it be nice if you could pick and choose your UI? Pick and choose your "integrations", your "plugins", your client, etc without having to lose your entire userbase, history, contacts?<p>Some sort of <i>open</i> protocol.<p>Urgh, I've been working on this lately and the entire field is depressing. Between one side that doesn't understand the legitimate need for open protocols, and another side that doesn't understand why IRC isn't the end-all-be-all of group chat (and why UX matters), it's just people talking past each other.<p>Every new attempt at making "the slack killer" makes this problem worse, because it comes with its own protocol. Its own users. Etc.<p>PS: If somebody has free time to work on an open source multi-protocol group chat gateway, email me, I have something started.