What do I need that for for my open source project? I could probably get github notifications, or bugs, or something via a bot in IRC if I wanted, but I just don't see the need. Chat is by its nature not supposed to be the hub of an open source project, because it's a real time thing in a distributed group of people who may not be able to do real time.
Those things can be kind of cool for a company, but when I'm hanging out, on, say #postgres, it's to ask a question or discuss functionality, not see pull requests roll through the screen.
Chat is by its nature not supposed to be the hub of an open source project, because it's a real time thing in a distributed group of people who may not be able to do real time.
From this, it sounds like the only substantive difference you're hung up on is message persistence. If that's being provided by a stable third party (i.e. a log bot, the technical details of which are irrelevant), what else are you missing?
Those things can be kind of cool for a company, but when I'm hanging out, on, say #postgres, it's to ask a question or discuss functionality, not see pull requests roll through the screen.