> trivial to build

The point was it isn't built, where as there's auto completion support for emojis which wouldn't even need that "trivial" software. That's in the matrix's sdk. If it's so trivial, please, build for the IRC community. I use hexchat on my desktop and weechat on the server. Would you mind building me one if it is trivial?

> That's irrelevant. You claimed that the simplicity of the IRC protocol was something unobtainable with those features. That's what I am disputing.

Fine, I concede. But I'm surprised you're still going for this. I tried out a bunch of different IRC applications and couldn't find search in any. Oh well.

> It's precisely about whether it's possible. You claimed that simple protocols for chat were not compatible with the features you listed.

My argument was about the ecosystem and the applications and the contributors worked on those applications. You can extend any protocol to worked with other servers and your own extensions to work with your own version of the server code.

If IRC protocol is so amazing, then do you have a reason why it is constantly changed? I've seen it adopted to XMPP, Jabber and others. No sane person today will use the default IRC protocol in an application they intend to keep proprietary.

Discussing what's possible is a waste of time because any feature can be built given time and effort. The point is how easy and how maintainable/stable. More importantly, is it available now?

>I agree that IRC was never intended to be run in a browser and doesn't run in a browser well. But that is irrelevant.

I don't understand your logic. Why isn't something running well in a browser irrelevant? Do you expect everyone to use the command line or native applications all the time?

> "We should all use slack because simple standardised protocols can't do X, Y and Z" is FUD.

Huh. Well I wonder why there are sizable OSS communities moving to Slack. What's your take on this?

> So I don't think that IRC is being held back by an inability to implement things

Then why aren't we seeing the features that are in Slack in any IRC client? It's obvious people want the features in slack. Session persistence is an important feature for people in most OSS projects I've seen using slack.

> What are you talking about? I haven't said anything of the sort.

Oh come on. Your response to many of my points was basically 'it's possible', but not about if it is available today. If I were a non-technical user, what should I do if I want those features? I would just move to slack if there's nothing better than IRC out there.

>Very, very few OSS projects have moved to slack

It's true that many OSS projects didn't move to slack, but that's just because of inertia. Maybe we just look at different OSS projects, but many of what I see use slack, and the numbers aren't going down. Slack itself talked about how there are lots of OSS projects choosing slack and it's straining them .

Here's an article about OSS usage of slack[1]. Note how OSS projects are trying to mimic slack, not IRC. There's a reason for that, and you're conveniently ignoring that. Here's a discussion where you can see many people talking about the shortcomings of slack and why how IRC is failing them.[2]

To name a couple large OSS projects which moved to slack Wordpress - https://make.wordpress.org/chat/

Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io/community/

There are bunch which I personally use, like Monero and Golem project. The problem is that the total number is rapidly increasing.

>a protocol that has been successful for a long time, is open, is inherently distributed and which there are many clients on many platforms for, while going 'look at how awesome [thing nobody uses] is!!'

No one is arguing about it's openness or success in the past. Just that it's time to move on.

>Also the majority of IRC users aren't using freenode and the use of IRC by OSS is a tiny portion of the total use of IRC.

IRC is in use for a very, very long time. No doubt. But you must be joking if you compare that you use of slack. There are so many people and companies (who could've used IRC by hosting it themselves) that it eclipses the use of IRC.

[1]:https://www.wired.com/2016/03/open-source-devs-racing-build-...
[2]:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10486541