Conservative proposal: let's work with Kiwi IRC

[Ilmari Lauhakangas]

Hello you radicals. I am a KDE user and contributor and a member of The 
Document Foundation. Jonathan already referred to my mail on the 
LibreOffice projects list, so I might as well branch out here.

I've been working with Kiwi IRC's lead developer Darren for some weeks 
now. Today I showed him the "KDE IM requirements" Etherpad contents. He 
said he is willing to work with KDE and LibreOffice to provide a modern 
messaging solution on top of IRC. Working together would mean we trial 
the releases to make sure we are happy with the features. This is 
something that I am already doing for Kiwi as a web designer and 
battle-hardened bug triager.

I want to note that I was intrigued by Eike's mail about a possible Qt 
Quick -based Konversation reboot. I suggested I could try and gather 
funding to get it to a releasable state, but he was hesitant because of 
the usual issues with FOSS funding (who does the money go to exactly, 
how to agree on goals etc.). It would be great to have a desktop client 
with a GUI that stands out from the crowd. I proposed funding because I 
have a lot of experience in promoting FOSS crowdfunding campaigns, 
including Blender and Krita.

The work-in-progress Kiwi Next client can be tested like so: 
https://kiwiirc.com/nextclient/#irc://irc.freenode.net/kde
You can add more channels separated with commas.

I am including here Darren's thoughts on the KDE IM requirements 
Etherpad:

Kiwi Next is the next generation of the Kiwi IRC client, specifically 
aiming to bring modern interfaces and ease of use from platforms such as 
Slack to IRC.

Many communities have established environments built up around IRC so 
any features or additions that Kiwi IRC brings will be 100% IRC 
compliant throughout and put to the IRCv3 working group so that other 
clients and servers may also make use of the functions.

The UI for Kiwi Next is getting tested on all major browsers including 
mobile, with translations being made available for 28 languages to make 
sure that anybody trying to be part of a community can do so.

Keeping people connected to IRC so that they may receive notifications 
on their desktop and/or mobile is a huge feature currently missing from 
IRC. This is currently being developed directly into Kiwi IRC so it is 
available out of the box with minimal fuss. Once connected and logged 
into your existing network services, a user can then simply resume their 
session with complete message history and searching. This is a feature 
that will be introduced on kiwiirc.com very soon but also entirely open 
source to be used anywhere. Works very similar to ZNC in that Kiwi acts 
as a normal IRC client which means any IRC client can make use of the 
same server.

A lot of the points mentioned are very much inline with the aims for 
Kiwi Next, most likely due to the same mindset: Slack + IRC merged 
together with some IRCv3 features thrown in.

Some quick overview points:
* 100% standards compliant
* Part of the IRCv3 working group to improve IRC itself
* Open source with an available hosted solution
* Use existing infrastructure and tools
* Multilingual and accessible
* Web based while still allowing desktop clients to be used
* Has already been tested with thousands of users in a single channel 
flood fest
* Built in media preview (images, videos, PDFs, anything that can be 
embedded)

Soon to be released:
* Team based channels that supports @everybody highlighting
* Switchable message views such as traditional IRC view and a more 
relaxed avatar + relaxed view
* Message reactions (Using IRCv3 standards so they work with other 
clients too)

In development at the moment:
* Built in BNC with desktop/mobile notifications
* Use Kiwi IRC and a desktop client on the same account at the same time 
(similar to ZNC)
* Message history + searching + exporting
* File sharing by uploading files through the UI, with optional file 
history

Not in development but can easily be added into Kiwi Next if required:
* Replying to a message with a reference/quote
* Editing messages
* Annotate images linked/shared through the client
* Stickers between Kiwi clients or between all IRC clients