freenode

freenode, formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC network which is particularly popular with free and open source software users and programmers. It is the official network of many major free software projects, such as Debian GNU/Linux and the GNU project [1]. freenode reports nearly 30,000 simultaneous connections at weekly peak.

Users of the network are encouraged to contribute to the Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC). The contributed funds are used to continue the improvement of the network, as well as for the PDPC to take on a variety of charitable social support projects for the FOSS communities.

freenode uses IRC server software called hyperion-ircd, a fork of the formerly used software called dancer-ircd (there is also an IRC bot called "dancer," completely unrelated to freenode). Hyperion traces ancestry back to EFnet's ircd-hybrid-6.0 tree (as opposed to Undernet) codebase. It has NickServ and ChanServ bots provided to reserve nicknames and channels. The services program is theia (formerly dancer-services), and it is a modified version of hybserv, designed only to work with hyperion-ircd, due to changes in the server to server messages. freenode servers are usually named after science fiction or fantasy authors.

History

Rob Levin (lilo), the founder of the network, traces its inception back to January 29, 1994, when he started a small Linux support channel called #linuxneo on the EFnet IRC network. The channel wasn't active until August of that year, and soon after it became active it changed its name to #linpeople.

It then moved from Undernet to DALnet, and in late 1995 moved again to its own IRC server, irc.linpeople.org. In 1998, the server was renamed irc.openprojects.net and generalized its mission, attracting a variety of free software projects. And in August, 2002, it became a network: freenode, a service of Peer-Directed Projects Center.

External links

• freenode.net (official site)
• Channel list (from netsplit.de)
• chat.freenode.net (freenode IRC main rotation access)
• hyperion (information about the new hyperion ircd)
• NOIDPREFIXPurpose (a policy page describing the purpose of a planned freenode server feature)

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Freenode on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

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