+++
+++
== IRC

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a communications protocol that's been
around for almost the same length of time as me. It's an open
standard, simple to read and write at a protocol level, and has
first class support for federation of servers.

=== WIP History of IRC

* August 1988, first IRC server in use <<1>>
* November 1988, international links established <<1>>
* August 1990, EFNet splits from ANet <<1>> -- history?
* December 1992, Undernet created <<1>> -- history?
* May 1993, RFC published <<1>> -- better source
* July 1994, Dalnet formed <<1>> -- history?
* July 1996, IRCnet and EFnet split ("The Great Split") <<1>> -- history?
* June 1998, IRCX <<3>>
* 1998, Freenode (Open Project Network) started <<1>> -- history?
* April 2000, RFC2812 <<4>>
* 2002 - OPN becomes Freenode <<5>>

==== Sources

[bibliography]
- [[[1]]]: https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html
- [[[2]]]: http://www.irc.org/history_docs/jarkko.html
- [[[3]]]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pfenning-irc-extensions-04
- [[[4]]]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812
- [[[5]]]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openprojects