[Linux-aus] An abridged history of #linuxaus and Linux Australia IRC

[Gary Allpike <spice@spice.net.au>]

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@spice.net.au
gary@allpikes.com.au