But Gitlab is a for-profit company.
I don't see this as Gitter laying down arms, but rather as Gitlab not being able to monetize Gitter enough to justify keeping it in the company. They probably sold it for a very reasonable amount.
That is indeed not what happened. It's just an acquisition. It does not actually give us hope that there's more momentum towards competitors being willing to play together in federation, that's not what happened.
Not sure why the one who made that point is getting downvoted, I think it's an interesting observation. That the press release arguably kind of intentionally tries to hand wave over a bit.
The reality is that bridging a big existing network is a significant undertaking and nobody has done it before (other than possibly Matrix.org and Freenode, but it’s not like Freenode is letting us talk TS6; we come in as clients). So the acquisition is basically a catalyst to break this impasse. We’re hoping that Rocket.Chat, Mattermost, Teams, Slack, Discord will watch what we do and copy it with more confidence to join the network. At least that’s the dream :)
My most-realistic dream is for Freenode to be Matrix by default with the IRC interface just for clients.
Admittedly, I'm a fan of the matrix protocol and the Element client...but i have friends still living on slackland, etc. If what you're hoping for would really would happen, well that would be so awesome!
Gitter of it's own accord federating with matrix would be a watershed moment of a competitor laying down it's arms for the greater good, a détente in capitalism, and a really good sign for the future of all things Federated.
Element acquiring Gitter is normal M&A, normal business. It's still good for Matrix and good for Gitter users, and we're still cheering you on, but it's not quite that same watershed moment.