{"id":15372021,"url":"https://github.com/bagder/irchistory","last_synced_at":"2026-02-12T06:11:06.534Z","repository":{"id":137414950,"uuid":"369487512","full_name":"bagder/irchistory","owner":"bagder","description":"The history of IRC","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2025-09-02T07:51:56.000Z","size":23,"stargazers_count":52,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":3,"subscribers_count":4,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-09-03T17:45:32.311Z","etag":null,"topics":["documentation","history","irc"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html","language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":null,"status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/bagder.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":null,"code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2021-05-21T09:43:53.000Z","updated_at":"2025-09-02T07:51:59.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":null,"dependency_job_id":"f053c0d1-a043-44ad-a804-ceab513ef304","html_url":"https://github.com/bagder/irchistory","commit_stats":{"total_commits":9,"total_committers":2,"mean_commits":4.5,"dds":0.2222222222222222,"last_synced_commit":"14f3ae79084ae46e2c1f9cd367198a949c4a9b84"},"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"purl":"pkg:github/bagder/irchistory","repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/bagder%2Firchistory","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/bagder%2Firchistory/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/bagder%2Firchistory/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/bagder%2Firchistory/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/bagder","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/bagder/irchistory/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","sbom_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/bagder%2Firchistory/sbom","scorecard":null,"host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":286080680,"owners_count":29360467,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2026-02-12T01:03:07.613Z","status":"online","status_checked_at":"2026-02-12T02:00:06.911Z","response_time":55,"last_error":null,"robots_txt_status":"success","robots_txt_updated_at":"2025-07-24T06:49:26.215Z","robots_txt_url":"https://github.com/robots.txt","online":true,"can_crawl_api":true,"host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["documentation","history","irc"],"created_at":"2024-10-01T13:49:25.286Z","updated_at":"2026-02-12T06:11:06.501Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/bagder.png","language":null,"funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# History of IRC (Internet Relay Chat)\n\nI've done my very best to gather information from as many sources as possible\nto verify facts, stories and dates. If you have additional information, have\nfound errors in my text or just feel like commenting anything, email me,\nsubmit an [issue](https://github.com/bagder/irchistory/issues) or post a\n[pull-request](https://github.com/bagder/irchistory/pulls)!\n\nFeel free to link to [this page](https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html) or\nhost it elsewhere. Please keep Daniel Stenberg credited as author.\n\nOther stories about [IRC history](http://www.irc.org/history.html).\n\n## The Beginning\n\nIRC was born during summer 1988 when Jarkko \"WiZ\" Oikarinen wrote the\nfirst IRC client and server at the University of Oulu, Finland (where he\nwas working at the Department of Information Processing Science).\n\nJarkko intended to extend the BBS software he administrated at\ntolsun.oulu.fi, to allow news the usenet style, real time discussions\nand similar BBS features. The first part he implemented was the chat\npart, which he did with borrowed parts written by his friends Jyrki\nKuoppala and Jukka Pihl. It was initially tested on a single machine,\nand according to the words from Jarkko himself *\"The birthday of IRC was\nin August 1988. The exact date is unknown, at the end of the month\nanyways.\"*. The first IRC server was named tolsun.oulu.fi.\n\nJyrki Kuoppala pushed Jarkko to ask Oulu University to free the IRC code\nso that it also could be run outside of Oulu, and after they finally got\nit released, Jyrki Kuoppala immediately installed a server (which later\nbecame irc.cs.hut.fi). This was the first \"irc network\".\n\nAri Lemmke's own words: *\"At the same time Jyrki installed ircd, I was\nat the same room and had nothing to do, so I decided to crack into\ntolsun (the irc server Sun machine at Oulu), and naturally ;-) got in\nthrough a new hole in sendmail. (At that time Jyrki was still the best\ncracker I knew...)\"*\n\nJarkko got some friends at the Helsinki and Tampere Universities to start\nrunning IRC servers when his number of users increased.\n\nOther universities soon followed. Markku J\u0026auml;rvinen helped improving\nthe client. At this time Jarkko realized that the rest of the BBS features\nprobably wouldn't fit in his program!\n\nJarkko got in touch with guys at the University of Denver and Oregon State\nUniversity. They had got an IRC network running (they had got the program\nfrom one of Jarkko's friends, Vijay Subramaniam -- the first non-Finnish\nperson to use IRC) and wanted to connect to the Finnish network.\n\nIRC then grew larger and got used on the entire Finnish national network -\nFunet - and then connected to Nordunet, the Scandinavian branch of the\nInternet.\n\nIn November 1988, IRC had spread across the Internet.\n\nIn the middle of 1989, there were some 40 servers worldwide. \n\nircII was released 1989 by Michael Sandrof.\n\nIn July 1990, IRC averaged at 12 users on 38 servers.\n\nIn 1990, a new network was set up in order to develop a new version (2.6) of\nthe ircd. The network named ChNet (about 25 servers and no users) existed a\nfew months before disagreements among the programmers caused it to dissolve.\n\n## EFnet\n\nIn August 1990 the first major disagreement took place in the IRC\nworld. The \"A-net\" (Anarchy net) included a server named\neris.berkeley.edu.  It was all open, required no passwords and had no\nlimit on the number of connects. As Greg \"wumpus\" Lindahl explains: \"it\nhad a wildcard server line, so people were hooking up servers and\nnick-colliding everyone\".\n\nThe \"Eris Free network\", EFnet, made the eris machine the first to be\nQ-lined (Q for quarantine) from IRC (wumpus' words again: \"Eris refused\nto remove that line, so I formed EFnet. It wasn't much of a fight; I got\nall the hubs to join, and almost everyone else got carried\nalong.\"). A-net was formed with the eris servers, EFnet was formed with\nthe non-eris servers. History showed most servers and users went with\nEFnet. The name EFnet lived only shortly, as soon as ANet had died, the\nname EFnet became void too. There was one and only \"IRC\" left again for\na while.\n\nTubNet was the next network to splinter off. It was created by a crowd of\npeople in #hottub that grew tired of all the netsplits. It got 5 servers\nand around 100 users. It died again in September the same year.\n\nOne often-talked-about event in the history of IRC is the gulf war. In\nearly 1991, [live reports](\nhttp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/communications/logs/Gulf-War/) were\navailable and more than 300 concurrent users were experienced for the\nfirst time.\n\n## Undernet\n\nAnother fork effort, the first that really made a big and lasting\ndifference, was initiated by 'Wildthang' in USA October 1992 (it forked\noff the EFnet ircd version 2.8.10). It was meant to be just a test\nnetwork to develop bots on but it quickly grew to a network \"for friends\nand their friends\". In Europe and Canada a separate new network was\nbeing worked on (by '_dl' and 'WIZZARD') and in December the french\nservers connected to the Canadian ones, and in the end of the month, the\n.fr-.ca network was connected to the US one and the network that later\ncame to be called \"The Undernet\" was born.\n\nThe \"undernetters\" wanted to take ircd further in an attempt to make it\nless bandwidth consumptive and to try to sort out the channel chaos\n(netsplits and takeovers) that EFnet started to suffer from. For the\nlatter purpose, the Undernet implemented timestamps, new routing and\noffered the CService -- a program that allowed users to register\nchannels and then attempted to protect them from troublemakers. (More or\nless a global defense bot.) The very first server list presented, from\nFebruary 15th 1993, includes servers from USA, Canada, France, Croatia\nand Japan. On August 15th, the new user count record was set to 57\nusers.\n\n## RFC 1459\n\nIn May 1993, the Request For Comments 1459, for the IRC protocol is out\nfor the public. It has since been subject to many violations and\nextensions.\n\nIt is notable that the CTCP parts and things like colors and formats are\nnot included in the protocol spec. Nor is character encoding.\n\n## Dalnet\n\nDuring the summer (some sources mention July) 1994, the Undernet is\nitself forked. This time, the new Network is called Dalnet (named after\nits founder: dalvenjah), and they formed the new network for better user\nservice and even more user and channel protections. One of the more\nsignificant changes in Dalnet already from the beginning is their use of\nlonger nicknames (the original ircd limit being 9 letters). Dalnet ircd\nmodifications were made by Alexei \"Lefler\" Kosut.\n\nDalnet was thus based on the undernet ircd server, although the dalnet\npioneers were EFnet abandoners. According to James Ng the initial dalnet\npeople were *\"ops in #StarTrek sick from the constant\nsplits/lags/takeovers/etc\"*.\n  \nDalnet quickly offered global WallOps (IRCop messages that can be seen by\nusers who are +w (/mode NickName +w)), longer nicknames, Q:Lined nicknames\n(nicknames that cannot be used i.e.  ChanServ, IRCop, NickServ, etc.),\nglobal K:Lines (ban of one person or an entire domain from a server or the\nentire network), IRCop only communications: GlobOps, +H mode showing that\nan IRCop is a \"helpop\" etc.\n\nMuch of Dalnet's new functions were written in early 1995 by Brian\n\"Morpher\" Smith and allow users to own nicknames, channels, send memos\nand more.\n\n## oz.org\n\nUndernet split (again) in March 1996 when the sole Australian server\ndelinked from Undernet because of difficulties with the connection\nacross the TransPacific Australian/United States network link. The first\nfew months of oz.org's existence were primarily a trial delink from the\nUndernet because of the inability to maintain a link during peak usage\nhours. One of the two designers (chaos and seks) of the original Undernet\nX and W chanserv was Australian, and the same code was used for Oz.org's\nZ (the name of the chanserv). In June 2001, ozorg boasted peak usages of\n4,000 simultaneous users.\n\n## IRCnet\n\nIn July 1996, after months of flame wars and discussions on the mailing\nlist, there was yet another split due to disagreement in how the\ndevelopment of the ircd should evolve. Most notably, the \"European\"\n(most of those servers were in Europe) side that later named itself\nIRCnet argued for nick and channel delays, where the EFnet side argued\nfor timestamps. Most (not all) of the IRCnet servers were in Europe,\nwhile most of the EFnet server were in the US. This event is also known\nas \"The Great Split\" in many IRC societies. EFnet has since (as of\nAugust 1998) grown and passed the number of users it had then. In the\nautumn year 2000, EFnet has some 50,000 users and IRCnet 70,000.\n\n## Freenode - Open Projects Network\n\nYet another IRC network that opened its doors in 1998 named the Open\nProjects Network, and had about 100 users and less than 20 channels that\nyear. In late 2001 it had grown to nearly 4,000 users and over 1,300\nchannels. The OPN uses the Dancer IRCD server, after having been using ircu\nthe initial few years.\n\nThis network was later renamed to \u003cb\u003eFreenode\u003c/b\u003e.\n\nIn 2011, it peaked at 65,000 users in 40,000 channels. In 2021 it reached\n90,000 users.\n\n## libera.chat\n\nIn May 2021, there's a mass admin exodus from Freenode (after\ndisagreements with the owner of parts of the infra) and many of the\nadmins instead set camp over in the recently created [libera.chat](\nhttps://libera.chat) network. Many channels formerly on\nFreenode follows on over to libera.\n\n## Other Networks\n\nOf course, while internet is booming so does IRC. There exists hundreds\nof independent IRC networks today (like amiganet, linuxnet, galaxynet,\nbestnet, NewNet, AnotherNet, ChatNet, UpperNet, ZAnet, X-Net, GammaNet,\nSuperChat, IceNet, RedBrasil, GR-Net, AlphaStar, SorceryNet etc), but\nluckily there is \"only\" four of the main ones (this was the reality back\nin 1998) that keep develop their own version of the ircd server\nsoftware.\n\nOf course, as of 2002, lots of other networks have popped up and now\nnumerous of them are developing their own customized versions of the IRC\nprotocol.\n\n## Further Standardization Attempts\n\nIETF-IRCUP was an initiative started in January 1998, to gather all the\nflavors of IRC servers to document a new RFC and possibly set a new\nstandard for all networks to commit to. That project died.\n\nCTCP/2 was an attempt, started in 1997 by Bjorn Reese, to develop and\nstandardize the Client To Client Protocol that was never in the\nRFC. Clients have been known to extend and modify the original CTCP\nprotocol without allowing non-compliant clients to filter the new\ncodes. CTCP/2 was meant to define how codes and perhaps more important\nnew codes should be introduced in order to let old clients remain\nfunctional. It was also meant to address the IPv6 problems the DCC\ninitiating sequence has. The CTCP/2 project died as well.\n\n[IRCv3](https://ircv3.net/) - *\"We’re the IRCv3 Working Group – a\ncollection of IRC software developers and network staff that develop\nextensions to the IRC client protocol\"*\n  \nWe'll just have to wait and see what the future of IRC has to show...\n\n## IRC Popularity\n\n According to measurements done by [irc.netsplit.de](\nhttps://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top10.php), IRC in general have lost\nusers gradually ever since 2004/2005. Those years, the top 4 IRC\nnetworks all had over 100,000 users each on a daily basis. Those\nnetworks were Quakenet, Undernet, IRCnet and EFnet. Quakenet was in the\nlead with more than 200,000 users.\n\nIn the beginning of 2011, Quakenet is just above 100,000 users and the\nonly network over 100K.\n\nIn 2021, Freenode (before its demise) is the largest one with peak of\n90,000 users in February.\n\n## Thanks to\n\nI did not experience all of this. I found information on various places\nand I received information from various people in order to write\nthis. People that have helped me with this include:\n\n - Greg \"wumpus\" Lindahl\n - Vesa \"vesa\" Ruokonen\n - James Ng\n - Tuomas Heino\n - Richard (eagle`s on undernet)\n - Ari Lemmke\n\n## See Also\n\nThe Serial Port's [IRC documentary on\nYouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UbKenFipjo). This documentation and\nme talking to them are reasons for the \"special thanks\" to me shown in the end\nof the episode.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fbagder%2Firchistory","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fbagder%2Firchistory","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fbagder%2Firchistory/lists"}