Register matrix.org accounts there. There's a web client, desktop clients and mobile clients (called Riot.im). It's open source and federated. And, there are IRC bridges!
Matrix is a federated chat protocol. It is like IRC or XMPP but synchronizes history and uses HTTP-based protocol. There are bridges to IRC, XMPP, and Gitter.
Matrix/Riot.im is federated and has E2EE. It also has brigdes for IRC, Telegram etc. Here's a native client for macOS: https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass
aka Matrix, (Riot is the main client) is a good one because it is decentralized and federated. This means there can be many servers and they can all be linked up. Additionally IRC can be be bridged among other things
Matrix is totally open sourced. Server side and the official client (Riot) can be deployed anywhere under your own control.
Also, deploying a bridge you can connect Matrix and IRC rooms, creating a hybrid channel mixing Matrix and IRC clients in the same room. It's pretty cool.
Matrix [1] (the protocol and network) and Riot (the client) are both open and used by many many people already.
The matrix team on behalf of the French goverment [3] developed a fork of the Riot app (TChap) [4] that connects to a private network of home servers with custom registration policies and probably other features as well.
Matrix.org is a non-profit open source project that publishes an open standard for decentralised interoperable communications (IM, VoIP, etc), an example server implementation and a bunch of example client SDKs, bridges, bots, etc. 'Matrix' is the name of the resulting ecosystem on the 'net.
Riot.im is one of the various client apps for Matrix, supporting iOS & Android, and is probably the most advanced at this point.
EDIT: clarify org structure: Matrix.org is being set up as a non-profit UK company owned by the various individuals running it. The business model is to create a new ecosystem for interoperable comms that everyone can benefit from.
Riot is a for-profit company (technically called Vector Creations Ltd) which is a subsiduary of Amdocs (a big telco supplier company). The business model is to offer paid hosted services in future for users wanting commercial-grade hosting and hosting private bots/bridges/etc.
Register matrix.org accounts there. There's a web client, desktop clients and mobile clients (called Riot.im). It's open source and federated. And, there are IRC bridges!
reply