> Exactly 0 of those things are required to interact on IRC.
This entire thread has been about whether IRC can offer a competitive experience to services like Slack, Gitter, etc. I don't think anyone is arguing that you cannot use IRC at all without tools but even you were just saying (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013780) that you need the money and skills to run a server to have a first-class experience.
> Source: have been using IRC since late 1993.
Ditto but the world has moved on quite a lot since then and many of us think that IRC needs to as well or it will continue declining into obscurity.
* Proprietary protocols are generally a bad deal, and especially so for open source projects. Proprietary clients (gmail, for instance) don't matter as much unless you are RMS.
* Chat should not be a central component of an open source project, but an 'extra' for occasional real time communications. If important stuff happens there, it will alienate people who can't participate because of time zones or other reasons.
Sorry, yes, I had the wrong tab open for that message and attributed it to you by mistake.
> * Chat should not be a central component of an open source project, but an 'extra' for occasional real time communications.
I generally agree that chat shouldn't matter enormously but the problem is that we don't really have a great free alternative. Slack has an interesting hybrid which is largely chat but with some elements which are closer to mailing list style (persistence, search, rich formatting, quasi-attachments) and the only other alternatives I see people regularly using are Google Groups or Git Hub issue tracker, neither of which are open.
The big problem is infrastructure: once we start talking about building a consistent experience with an open project, that means running servers, handling security and support work, etc. That's not a problem for well-staffed projects but it's an ongoing hassle for smaller projects. This would seem like a good place for a non-profit to provide infrastructure.
> If important stuff happens there, it will alienate people who can't participate because of time zones or other reasons.
Interestingly, this is a major reason I see cited in _favor_ of Slack. With IRC, you aren't involved if you weren't logged when a conversation started but with Slack you still receive notifications and can view or search the history.
Source: have been using IRC since late 1993.