Collecting requirements for a KDE-wide instant messaging solution (was: Re: radical proposal: move IRC to Rocket.Chat)

[Christian Loosli]

Okay, this is more and more drifting away from being remotely productive or 
helpful, but as I provided a working solution on top level, I feel free to 
tacke a few points that are, in my opinion, odd at best. 

First let's tackle that mysterious group of < 20 year olds: 

> > Is there any such organization at all?
> 
> Sure there is! Look at the tech startup scene, or the games industry.
> But okay, let’s say “predominantly younger than 30” to make it an easier
> task.

But KDE is not a tech startup. As people correctly wrote, KDE has a very long 
history and contributors of all age. I'd rather be that than one of the many 
tech startups with a bunch of little to no experience but fancy new chat 
systems, to be honest.  Do we really want and need to cater these mystical 
tweens so much? Are they the holy grail that saves KDE and worth alienating 
the people who are not this particular group? 

Even if that is the case, to answer your question:  Yes, there are such 
companies, plenty even. Basically a lot of companies which are exactly not in 
the small bubble that is  "tech start up", but other industries. Also 
companies that actually have to do business with other companies, where mail 
simply still is the standard. 


Then, on the subject of emojis, stickers or even the protocol used being so 
important: 

Let's see what others do. Let's take our main, most famous friendly competitor 
GNOME. They even run their very own IRC network still, and actively code new 
IRC applications. 
Mozilla? Own IRC network. 
Reddit, quite the place for young techies and startup? Created their own IRC 
network. Hardly turning off or away people, it seems. If we fail to attract 
fresh blood, then maybe the problem is not actually "we use IRC". 

But even if it would: to be honest, if someone decides what project they want 
to contribute due based on what chat protocol they use internally, I'm 
personally not sure if that is a well suited candidate due to rather odd 
priorities.

Last but not least: if IRC really is so much of an issue, which I doubt: there 
are solutions readily available (Tg and Matrix bridge) or available in the 
future (Rocket bridge) which do resolve the problem whilst still maintaining 
compatibility for people who prefer what worked for 20 years and still works. 
So the reasons to continue with a replacement I can see are either "We want to 
get rid of the other one completely and enforce this one" or "we want it NOW", 
both of which I heavily have to disagree with for various reasons already 
mentioned. 

TL;DR: no. 

Kind regards, 

Christian