I am all for using an open source alternative to Slack. But IRC is not it. What we need is a modern, open standard for persistent group chat ala Slack, with security features. I am not saying sit down and draft papers, writing code that can become a standard is fine. Maybe Mattermost is it, I don't know.
Obviously that post is a bit off-topic, but anyone following HN regularly likely inferred that this topic is in response to the recent "Slack vs. IRC" debate that's been going on.
