What benefit would it be to Slack to publish their protocols? Or to IRC to know about them? I think the chances are extremely slim that IRC could be improved by

What benefit would it be to Slack to publish their protocols? Or to IRC to know about them? I think the chances are extremely slim that IRC could be improved by knowing how Slack works. Slack is not a technical marvel with mysterious underpinnings. It's a centralized chat service with a pretty interface, simple clients, and (the secret sauce that won them all the converts) seamless integrations with pretty much every other open or semi-open service out there.