I understand the urge of certain people to fight Slack but if you think irc is a legitimate alternative, you probably don't understand the problem enough to off

I understand the urge of certain people to fight Slack but if you think irc is a legitimate alternative, you probably don't understand the problem enough to offer a suggestion. More credible alternatives would be Hipchat or Gitter but anyone who has used these two tools know that they are still way, way behind Slack in functionalities and user friendliness. Slack is succeeding because it's a great tool. Want to beat it? Create a better tool and people will migrate to it for its merits, not because it's open source.