https://element.io/ ?

Like XMPP it supports federation, but Matrix is JSON instead of XML.

I looked into it a couple of times, but most clients lack E2E encryption support, and the oficial ones are Electron monsters. We mostly work over SSH on remote workstations, hence the CLI/TUI requirement.

Altough, it seems there is a plugin for WeeChat with E2E encryption[1]. Gotta take a look.

[1] https://github.com/poljar/weechat-matrix

Yes if you want an XMPP replacement with E2E you definitely want Matrix.

(Element, formerly Riot, is the client by the company founded by the founders of Matrix.)

E2E encryption kinda breaks with the model of Zulip, ie a company or a project where everything should be visible by everyone even if they arrive after the conversation has started. You'll probably be better served by hosting your own instance and trusting everyone who connects to it.

That is another thing, it would be even better if we could control E2E encryption per room.

Since we do everything in the open, instead of needing something like XMPP for private conversations, and IRC for public conversations, we could simply have private rooms with E2E encryption for the team, and public rooms for everyone else.

I wish IRC had E2E encryption.

In the end, I think we might stay with XMPP with OMEMO for private conversations — or Matrix, depending on how well weechat-matrix work —, and use mailing lists for public discussions. We already use them for patches anyway.

weechat-matrix works impressively well. the guy who wrote it now works on core Matrix stuff for Element :)

There is a Zulip CLI client - https://github.com/zulip/zulip-terminal .

Awesome, and it seems to be official as well. They could mention it on their website, even though it is still not considered stable.

Now to look for E2E encryption support.

I suppose for private messages it would be relatively easy to implement that, or add OTR support or something.