Ripcord is a proprietary Discord/Slack client that aims to fix one of the major issues with Discord: Performance. It uses non-free licensing and refuses to adopt a libre policy under the guise that it is more profitable (ignoring the fact that making money is completely possible under the GPL and a piece of software such as this should use this as a benefit) to distribute the software as shareware with a "premium" version. The creator of Ripcord refuses to hear anyone's arguments out in favor of libre-licensing to the point where its now been memeticized on their server. This type of software should be avoided for many reasons, but the only people using this type of client are looking only for practical reasons not to use it as they do not care about its non-free nature. This is understandable as many people want things that "just werks", but sadly non-free software doesn't "just werk" as there exists a bottleneck in the development team. As of currently, many key features are missing from the client such as muting, animated emotes, gif usage, webm usage, steaming, and much more, but due to developer refusal and bottleneck, wont be added in a timely matter, or in some cases, at all. If the source code was open to the public, or at least given to the end user who purchases the product, many developers could already be ironing out the software, optimizing the code further, offering new features, and adopting a module-like focus (with Ripcord being the base, and if you want animated gifs, webms, etc. you can install a community made plugin for it), but alas, this isn't the case and wont be the case due to a stubborn developer. Of course, if he does change his mind about licensing and the code is audited to be safe I would suggest using the software. The program shines at what its supposed to do, but due to the constraints of development the proprietor of the software has put on the software, it is in a bare state and will likely fizzle out in the coming years, especially when Discord starts cracking down on this client or when the main developer loses interest.
