Previously, the company conducted testing, in the final round of which participated Mattermost, Matrix the client Riot, Rocket.Chat and Slack. Other options were discarded due to their complexity or the inability to integrate with Mozilla's Single Sign-On system (IAM). Ultimately, Matrix was chosen along with hosting from the protocol developer (New Vector) — Modular.
The departure from IRC is due to the lack of necessary functionality and the protocol's unfriendliness to newcomers.
Matrix is an open protocol for creating a federated messaging network that can be used for many things requiring an HTTP REST API and a distributed log of events. The overwhelming majority of implementations are chat, but a blog or Internet of Things (IoT) server is also possible.
Riot is a Matrix client that provides an interface similar to Slack and all the functionality required for a modern messenger: end-to-end encryption, persistent history and search, moderation tools, and group and individual video/audio calls (VoIP).
Source: linux.org.ru
