Solved What's the prospect of FreeBSD IRC Surviving?

Lamia

Lamia

FreeBSD IRC Channels have always been on Freenode.

London Media Trust own PIA and now Freenode with Andrew Lee in charge. There are already bribe allegations going off the roof; see tweets.

Some other OS communities own their IRC servers/networks. FreeBSD has multiple channels like those OS communities. Any chance of seizing the opportunity to run their server(s)?
IRC is on a nosedive! Several networks will spring up in the coming weeks; we hope they withstand the test of time.
 
I believe there's also a #FreeBSD channel on EFNet. But all the "cool" kids are doing discord these days. IRC is a dying medium, much like Usenet. It will probably continue to exists because of old farts like us but it surely will never be as big as it once was.
 
That's sad to hear, though I seldom use it these days--though on occasion I'll jump on irc with a question about some application, such as the weechat plugin for slack. Back in my busy irc days, though, it was either EFNET, or some other non-Freenode server. Freenode was gradually starting to become popular, this was around 2000-2006 or 7
 
People always want to write their own IRCd and not do stuff like standardize on ZNC inclusion and authorization systems that don't require channel bots to prevent takeovers... You know, features people want.
 
I've only read a dozen minutes worth of stuff on this but I'm not sure how much any of it matters. It doesn't appear freenode service is changing in any way and the old staff set up a new home so anyone running rooms on freenode could just start one up there instead and update their documentation to point people to the right place.

There is a but though, as has been said already, IRC is dead/dying outside of old farts ? I haven't joined any IRC in 5+ years it's just such an old way of doing things and a bit of a PITA to use compared to more modern things for lazy people like myself. Although I still have fond memories of using IRC as a young teen to talk to school friends before msn messenger came about.
 
The "official" FreeBSD channels are on freenode. A very active and high-quality channel regarding ports (#bsdports) is on EFNet. There's also an unofficial FreeBSD channel (#freebsd) on IRCNet.

I personally don't care about freenode drama. It either works or it doesn't. IRC is neither private nor secure, anyone thinking that is mislead anyways. Let's just see whether FreeBSD decides to move "official" channels somwhere else ;)
 
The CentOS list just posted an announcement that their IRC wil be moving to irc.libera.chat. There is also a link at https://kline.sh which has some explanation and links to some other sources for those who are interested. I suspect SirDice is right about irc fading, but it we can always hope it doesn't.
 
scottro said:
The CentOS list just posted an announcement that their IRC wil be moving to irc.libera.chat. There is also a link at https://kline.sh which has some explanation and links to some other sources for those who are interested. I suspect SirDice is right about irc fading, but it we can always hope it doesn't.
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I just don't see any reason for panic. Again, IRC is neither secure nor private. This is a fact. So, the operator doesn't matter that much, as long as the service works.

If of course freenode develops into a shithole with fighting bots etc (like it was in the pre-services era, like the reason EFNet came to be…), THEN it's time to move away ;) But hey, if FreeBSD decides to operate the channels on a different network, I'll happily follow.

As for IRC declining: sure. Same thing that's happening to Usenet. I still think IRC is the best chat solution on the internet. Let's hope it will stay around :)
 
Zirias said:
The "official" FreeBSD channels are on freenode. A very active and high-quality channel regarding ports (#bsdports) is on EFNet. There's also an unofficial FreeBSD channel (#freebsd) on IRCNet.

I personally don't care about freenode drama. It either works or it doesn't. IRC is neither private nor secure, anyone thinking that is mislead anyways. Let's just see whether FreeBSD decides to move "official" channels somwhere else ;)
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I frankly second that. FreeBSD did set up a Jenkins instance for the entire project not too long ago, and it did become easier to host your own highly connected service on a server you rent from a provider of your choosing. Back in the day, freenode.net was the pretty much the only game in town, which is why just about everybody has an IRC channel on it, even with all the clunkiness of use and susceptibility to bots.
 
BTW if anything else fails: operating your OWN IRC network isn't rocket science either :D you just need hosts (ideally all around the world) willing to participate :cool:

But then, IRC is most useful with large networks with lots of channels. In the very beginning, there was only one IRC network, and "eris.berkeley.edu" was the first lapse leading to fragmentation. The original sin :D

I'd say keep calm and see what's happening. If freenode continues to work just fine (including services), why bother?
 
SirDice said:
I believe there's also a #FreeBSD channel on EFNet. But all the "cool" kids are doing discord these days. IRC is a dying medium, much like Usenet. It will probably continue to exists because of old farts like us but it surely will never be as big as it once was.
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You're probably referring to #FreeBSDHelp on EFNet which is officially recognized :-)
 
back then
Code: 
 *** - . . . L E G U I N . N E T W O R K . S E R V I C E S . . .
*** -                                                  .. IRC server
 *** -
 *** -   ..admin: is-
 *** -   ..opers: crystlize
 *** -
 *** -   ..rules:
 *** -     .. NO links lookers.
 *** -     .. NO clones (clone = more than one connection network-wide).
 *** -     .. NO flooding.
 *** -     .. NO war scripts.
 *** -     .. NO sheep
.
 
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Long live IRC!!

The bulk of IMs out there are in for monetising our data. Users are shouting at Slack and Discord to make it possible to download or preferably log their chats but their cries fell on deaf ears. Unlike IRC with multiple options (log, copy-paste,etc), they hardened access.

Sadly, many of the workarounds on the Internet are not for the rookies. I can't point at one widely used.

The same goes for running their services in a terminal. A quick look on the Internet gave these two [1, 2]. Are there better resources out there?
If the OS communities could go another route (be it running their instances or so but not following those emerging threats), that would be superb.
 
For slack, there is wee_slack, which is excellent. There was a way to use bittlebee with irssi but I never got that one working very well, and last time I tried, I couldn't get it working at all. I have a page on wee_slack with a link to a better page, at https://srobb.net/slackircclient.html but slack has made it harder to use now. Still the github page gives good instructions.

Slack, to me, is one of the most evil. When they started they were all about, Sure, you can use your irc client, but then they began making it difficult. It seemed to me that it was textbook embrace, engulf, extinguish.
 
That's a good point, and you're probably correct. However, some, including myself, feel that most of those features are a waste of bandwidth and resources, even though modern machines can easily deal with them. But the vast majority, I guess, want things that slack provides. Or perhaps, managers feel that this way, if something breaks, there's a company to ask for support and of course, blame. I'd guess that there are still many like myself, though maybe we're all old and fading away, prefer the old style irc though. It's faster, doesn't require a gui, enables, depending on client, having logs and you can even type a colon and parenthesis closing to get a simple emoticon.
 
Zirias said:
Again, IRC is neither secure nor private. This is a fact. So, the operator doesn't matter that much, as long as the service works.

If of course freenode develops into a shithole with fighting bots etc (like it was in the pre-services era, like the reason EFNet came to be…), THEN it's time to move away ;)
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That's right. It is not secure for the average user. I spent a little time on IRC but mostly mIRC and had a War Client with nukes and other thingys in the bomb bay door rack.

I consider all forms of Instant Messengers a security risk and gave all that up when I switched from Windows. Now, if I go at all, will only go to HTML chat where my old m8tes hang out. And they don't want to see me there.

I don't have a War Client anymore. I'm an Agent of Chaos and use FreeBSD. That's far worse to them.
 
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You have to enable JS for it to run as a web app.

Examples of correct input for the host field are:

Code: 
 192.168.0.1
    192.168.0.1:8000
    192.168.0.1:8000/weechat2
    [2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334]
    [2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334]:8000
    [2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334]:8000/weechat2
    yourhost.yourdomain.com
    yourhost.yourdomain.com:8000
    yourhost.yourdomain.com:8000/weechat2

Let me start my scanner on TCP port 8000 so I can find a proxy to use as an Agent of Chaos. Any machine with an open port will do, and I'll be running though one so that's not my IP# in your logs.
 
scottro said:
prefer the old style irc though
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What's funny is that you can gracefully degrade emojis, reactions, images, avatars, etc into IRC without it turning into MS Comic Chat but still "no." Even for things that aren't GUI oriented: No UTF8, no ZNC standardization, no more secure authentication schemes, no impossible-to-takeover-via-netsplit channels. Just "no."
 
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