However here we're talking about a chat client - something that should be easy to use by anyone, including your grandma. And so far, GNU and similar free software projects have failed to ship anything usable by a non-technical user.
Finally, GCC or GIMP doesn't fail because not many people use it whereas a chat client fades into irrelevance if nobody uses it, so even the tech people will abandon it.
Take a look at Mozilla - despite being free and open source they nailed their UX. Go to https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/new/ and notice how there's no mention of "open source" nor "mailing list" nor "./configure && make". Instead there's a list of reasons an average user would like to use it and a download button that gives you a ready to use binary.
I mean, just look at the download page for Spotify on Linux. "repository signing keys", "keyserver", "sudo apt-get". I can see a non-technical person thinking: "WTF is that? Where's the installer? Where's the DMG file?"
I remember an argument with someone on IRC about Linux and the person actually said that everybody should learn commands and those who don't are simply lazy and dumb.
This mentality is problematic and toxic for the cause of FOSS.