[Linux-aus] An abridged history of #linuxaus and Linux Australia IRC
Gary Allpike
spice at spice.net.au
Tue Jun 27 19:49:02 UTC 2006
Hi All,
A brief history of #linuxaus.
I first started the #linuxaus channel about 10 years ago or so - I'm too
old to remember exactly - on the oz.org network.
One of the very first people to join in was Terry Dawson, who may
remember dates better than me.
After some time on oz.org it became apparent that the admins of the
network were BSD zealots, and they decided on a "no linux" policy for
the servers on the network - now I'm not trying to incite religious war
here, but it just didnt seem appropriate to hang around with this type
of policy in place.
We then decided to move to what was then openprojects.net. At about the
same time, I made the offer to host a server on the OPN network, and
became (I think) the first AU server on OPN. OPN was a pretty high
maintenance network, that seemed to have never ending netsplits, crashes
and other various problems, but that was all part of the fun - before I
had a wife and 3 children :)
We sailed along happily for a couple more years on OPN, but after a
while the senior admin there "lilo" started to solicit donations of cash
from people via global messages, something to which the majority of the
regulars of #linuxaus and certainly myself were very much not in favour
of, so we decided to jack up our server and move on over to OFTC as
thats where a lot of the other disenchanted OPN users had migrated to.
We've been that way ever since. Since the change to OFTC, the IRCD has
pretty much been maintenance free, and certainly places no admin load on
the Linux Australia admin team.
Over the last couple of years, I have not used IRC at all myself, being
busy with work, kids and life in general, but I have popped back in to
the channel recently, and must say that it still has a lot of familiar
old names in it, so the old girl is still kicking along.
The channel could probably use some fresh life, and a gentle reminder
about table manners, but it would be a shame for it to lose its
character and long term regulars all in the name of progress.
Gary Allpike
spice at spice.net.au
gary at allpikes.com.au
More information about the linux-aus
mailing list