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Thanks for the tasty FUD!

Some comments here claim Qt is not dying because Nokia made some announcement and the Qt blog is hyperactive.

But look at the facts:
-the IRC channel they used: #qt-labs, has almost no activity since February

Looks like there's quite a bit of activity from just the last week

-the brand new Qt Developer Network has been deserted by the trolls

It'd be great if things were deserted by the trolls, I guess... Anyway, it doesn't seem deserted by the users

-the blog posts on Qt labs are just about future project, never anything concrete for the current library

Of the five posts on the front page, two are about merges of experimental features (the QML scenegraph and Lighthouse), two about conferences and summits, and one's about the release of QtWebkit 2.1.1. Not current enough for you?

-the plans for Qt 5 announced recently are ridiculous, no troll was involved in those

I'm not even going to reply to that one!

-the development on qt.gitorious.org stalled since February

If there is not quickly a fork of Qt, we will discover in 2 years that Qt is outdated and there is no longer any professional GUI library for Linux.

Latest commit is dated Jun 1 2011

Now, WTF are you talking about again?

GamesNet is in the top five? Interesting, because:

http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/details.php?net=OnlineGamesNet&submenu=years
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php

GamesNet is in the top five? Interesting, because:

http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/details.php?net=OnlineGamesNet&submenu=years
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php

GamesNet is in the top five? Interesting, because:

http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/details.php?net=OnlineGamesNet&submenu=years
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php

Everytime an article like this appears saying "IRC is bad, mmmkay" I find it funny how that largest network in the world is almost never mentioned, almost like it's not a *real* IRC network.

In my mind, DALnet is one of the networks that accually has one of the lowest noise ratios around. Quakenet, the current leader in usercount, raises questions with me. Their usercount rose very fast, and I wonder about their userbase. I personally know only -one- person who uses quakenet. You mention DALnet, Undernet or EFnet and people identify much more readily.

People seem to forget QuakeNet has always had a no warez, pr0n or other real IRC content policy years before DalNET or others did the same. It was started by a few Gamers who wanted someone stable to chat without netsplits caused by the latest kiddie attacks. Most small networks start this way.

QuakeNet has hardly grown "very fast" as the stats show: http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/details.php?net=Qu akeNet&point=years That looks more like a constant growth rate to me and thats real users, not large bot nets. They even analyse the user base client versions (http://www.quakenet.org/news.php?item=190) and bots make up a very very small percentage.

Sure DALnet, Undernet or EFnet get all the notarity but a simple policy of creating a safe, clean IRC network where people can actually chat actually seems to be more popular.

Go figure ....

..and some of the most popular websites also revolve around illegal file sharing. it's not that surprising. irc works pretty well for that sort of thing and is traditionally used for it...

anyhow.. the author knows it i'm sure.

and most of the more public easy to get into warez rings seem to have scattered into other irc networks than the most popular 3. just take a look at networks + most popular channels listing . the most popular channels on other networks than quakenet, ircnet and efnet are pretty much all centered around warez.

then of course there's networks that seem relatively free of this sort of thing, like freenode.

Well not according to here

As you can see there is about 1.2 Million people on IRC. Even including clones (people on more then one network) there surely is more then 50,000 people on IRC at one time. Also what about the small networks that are not on that list but exist. I run a small one my self. It doesn't take much to get one going. 2 Servers and hybrid. Also running your own network ensures that all the "problems" of the bigger networks (floods and idiots) are not a problem.

[14:10] ùíù There are 5561 users and 116121 invisible on 52 servers
[14:10] ùíù 401 IRC Operators online
[14:10] ùíù 45736 channels formed
[14:10] ùíù I have 7408 clients and 1 servers
[14:10] ùíù Current local users: 7408 Max: 7846
[14:10] ùíù Current global users: 121682 Max: 125316
[14:10] ùíù Highest connection count: 7847 (7846 clients) (136448 connections received)

That is EFnet alone. Although im sure enough of them are bots it's still alot of people.

A lot of people seem to be missing the point: It seems unlikely that Google would archive ALL channel logs. I mean it'd be really rather unfeasible technically. In order to join all 372628424682 or whatever channels on the largest networks, Google would need about 50,000 bots logged on at the same time. At this point, the nets could easily see the Google bots, and ban them for network abuse.

More likely is that, as the summary suggests, Google may be trying to emulate the functionality of something like netsplit.de. I'd be quite happy if they did this, as although netsplit.de is quite good, its channel search leaves a lot to be desired, and always seems to miss out a lot of channels, seemingly unable to get a reliable channel list for a lot of networks (they're pretty hostile to /LIST's now, unfortunaely). SearchIRC is a terrible channel search engine, because it fails to rank the results in order of number of people in the channel, for some bizarre reason, making its search somewhat useless.

If Google could implement a nice, polished service similar to netsplit.de, I'd be happy. If they tried to log everyone's chats in every channel, I (and I supect most IRCops) would be most unhappy, and expect to see Google's bots get banned from nets and channels very quickly.

There's more to IRC than EFnet ;)

Try looking here http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/?num=0&query=linux .

Maybe that's why quakenet wasn't in the list because of the non existant warez distribution (bots/channels). It's by far the largest network. So I think it's pretty odd the worm doesnt target quakenet.

Uh huh. QuakeNet (Currently ~150,000 users) has been going since Quake came out in '96. I think Tim's a little slow on the uptake there. (Disclaimer, I'm an operator on QuakeNet)

http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/

users channels
1. EFnet 115877 42693
2. QuakeNet 112496 134879
3. IRCnet 110942 54206
4. Undernet 99825 43173

you may notice that for example, quakenet is just full of cr**(more channels than users, meaning theres just shitloads of channels with one person)

Well, if there was no point, why would the (arguably) largest IRC network have a very strict anti-warez rules? That's Quakenet, by the way - and yes, it is my choice of IRC network.

Clearly there is a demand for a warez-free (OK, no specific file transfer channel) network. And yes, I've just continued the trend and said "Don't worry, the IRC network I use rocks, even if Dalnet sucks!" ;)

Someone should setup a website or something saying who went where, unless of course this has been setup already.

You could try searching for them here. That site maintains statistics on *all* the major IRC networks. It also has some very pretty graphs -- this one, for example, very graphically illustrates DALnet falling off the edge of the world.

Someone should setup a website or something saying who went where, unless of course this has been setup already.

You could try searching for them here. That site maintains statistics on *all* the major IRC networks. It also has some very pretty graphs -- this one, for example, very graphically illustrates DALnet falling off the edge of the world.

Just checked out http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/, and the present concurrent users are as follows:

network users channels

1. Undernet 93362 39010
2. EFnet 91815 36570
3. IRCnet 86006 47850
4. QuakeNet 56567 96825
5. BRASnet 41473 12545
6. GamesNET 25574 22348
7. BrasIRC 12669 4531
8. WebChat 12008 6508
9. IRC-Hispano 10900 14986
10. GalaxyNet 9617 13572

EFnet the top IRC network? Naaaaaaaah

I've always found this site handy, esp. for locating naughty sites. http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/

Perhaps also of note is the fact that DALnet reaches their 110-140K numbers with less than HALF the number of linked servers (22-26, versus 45-52 on IRCnet, EFnet and QuakeNet. See netsplit.de stats once again). At any rate, congratulations EFnet. It's certainly not a record, but still something to be proud of.

On the weekend of May 9-11 2002 both Spiderman and SWEP2 were released on various IRC channels. The sudden rise in channel populations was staggering: on Dal, #Newest-Movies went from a usual 450ppl to 1300; #VCDvault went from 350 to 1000; all the movie channels on Dalnet, Efnet and the XDCC chans on Criten.net were massively overfilled.

On May 10 2002 Dalnet reached a level of 139000+ concurrent users.See chart

The usual population of all major and minor IRC networks is just under a million. But on that weekend it was almost double. Seeing Efnet hit 100k isn't anything special. There are bigger networks, and events that make 100k users on Efnet seem ordinary.

I can't believe you guys put this yawner on the front page but rejected my PS2 Networked Divx player story, or even worse, my ultra-cool Enron Asset Auction story, which every geek on IRC is slobbering over.

Netsplit.de samples every 3 or 4 hours, so it has a tendency to miss large momentary spikes. It does, however, show the general relative sizes of the networks very well, and I haven't found a better source of information anywhere. IMO, their average table is the best showing of the size of networks, in which EFNet is 5th - http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/list1ua.var.

Actually, EFNet ceased to be the largest network in mid-2000. IRCnet was the first network to overtake it, but both Undernet, DALnet also eventually overtook EFnet later in 2000. IRCnet has been pretty much the largest network since then, except for this summer when DALnet jumped ahead of it. Now, DALnet has had lots of DOS problems, so IRCnet is a bit ahead again.

Recently, Quakenet has grown to the point where it is alternating between being second between itself and DALnet.

The IRC History charts at the website you mentioned are very good. I would recommend looking at these:

Top Ten IRC networks in 1999
Top Ten IRC networks in 2000
Top Ten IRC networks in 2001
Top Ten IRC networks so far in 2002

Actually, EFNet ceased to be the largest network in mid-2000. IRCnet was the first network to overtake it, but both Undernet, DALnet also eventually overtook EFnet later in 2000. IRCnet has been pretty much the largest network since then, except for this summer when DALnet jumped ahead of it. Now, DALnet has had lots of DOS problems, so IRCnet is a bit ahead again.

Recently, Quakenet has grown to the point where it is alternating between being second between itself and DALnet.

The IRC History charts at the website you mentioned are very good. I would recommend looking at these:

Top Ten IRC networks in 1999
Top Ten IRC networks in 2000
Top Ten IRC networks in 2001
Top Ten IRC networks so far in 2002

Actually, EFNet ceased to be the largest network in mid-2000. IRCnet was the first network to overtake it, but both Undernet, DALnet also eventually overtook EFnet later in 2000. IRCnet has been pretty much the largest network since then, except for this summer when DALnet jumped ahead of it. Now, DALnet has had lots of DOS problems, so IRCnet is a bit ahead again.

Recently, Quakenet has grown to the point where it is alternating between being second between itself and DALnet.

The IRC History charts at the website you mentioned are very good. I would recommend looking at these:

Top Ten IRC networks in 1999
Top Ten IRC networks in 2000
Top Ten IRC networks in 2001
Top Ten IRC networks so far in 2002

Actually, EFNet ceased to be the largest network in mid-2000. IRCnet was the first network to overtake it, but both Undernet, DALnet also eventually overtook EFnet later in 2000. IRCnet has been pretty much the largest network since then, except for this summer when DALnet jumped ahead of it. Now, DALnet has had lots of DOS problems, so IRCnet is a bit ahead again.

Recently, Quakenet has grown to the point where it is alternating between being second between itself and DALnet.

The IRC History charts at the website you mentioned are very good. I would recommend looking at these:

Top Ten IRC networks in 1999
Top Ten IRC networks in 2000
Top Ten IRC networks in 2001
Top Ten IRC networks so far in 2002

1. IRCNet
2. QuakeNet
3. DALnet
4. Undernet
5. EFNet

Nice breaking a user record - Especially when EFNET is the 4th largest network. 100k Users was broken like a year ago - by IRCnet.

Check for yourself

EFNet ceased to be the largest IRC network months ago. DALNet is now the largest net on average, but it's had problems with DoSes recently, so currently IRCNet is in the lead with 113,000 users and 51,000 channels. QuakeNet is also regularly larger than EFNet, which usually resides at the number 3 or 4 spot. See http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/ for the latest statistics.

I wish editors would check their facts before posting random sumbissions

/Erik

It is official; netsplit.de confirms: OPN is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OPN community when netsplit.de confirmed that OPN market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. This news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. OPN is collapsing in complete disarray.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OPN's future. The hand writing is on the wall: OPN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for OPN because OPN is dying. Things are looking very bad for OPN. As many of us are already aware, OPN continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

In the past month, OPN has lost 3 servers. With the current count of 29 servers, it will logically be 9 months until there are no servers remaining at all. Obviously, the network will probably survive slightly longer than this; it may even drag on for a whole extra year, crawling along like an undead corpse.

Network operator lilo also faces a bleak future. With his rapidly deteriorating financial situation and crucial position to the running and future of the network, it is only a matter of weeks before he is forced to leave and OPN descends into anarchy and chaos without a leader.

Fact: OPN is dying

It is official; netsplit.de confirms: OPN is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OPN community when netsplit.de confirmed that OPN market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. This news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. OPN is collapsing in complete disarray.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OPN's future. The hand writing is on the wall: OPN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for OPN because OPN is dying. Things are looking very bad for OPN. As many of us are already aware, OPN continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

In the past month, OPN has lost 3 servers. With the current count of 29 servers, it will logically be 9 months until there are no servers remaining at all. Obviously, the network will probably survive slightly longer than this; it may even drag on for a whole extra year, crawling along like an undead corpse.

Network operator lilo also faces a bleak future. With his rapidly deteriorating financial situation and crucial position to the running and future of the network, it is only a matter of weeks before he is forced to leave and OPN descends into anarchy and chaos without a leader.

Fact: OPN is dying

It is official; netsplit.de confirms: OPN is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OPN community when nets
plit.de confirmed that OPN market share has dropped yet again, now down to less
than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. This news serves to reinforce what
we've known all along. OPN is collapsing in complete disarray.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OPN's future. The hand writing is on t
he wall: OPN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for
OPN because OPN is dying. Things are looking very bad for OPN. As many of us are
already aware, OPN continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river o
f blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

In the past month, OPN has lost 3 servers. With the current count of 29 servers,
it will logically be 9 months until there are no servers remaining at all. Obvi
ously, the network will probably survive slightly longer than this; it may even
drag on for a whole extra year, crawling along like an undead corpse.

Network operator lilo also faces a bleak future. With his rapidly deteriorating
financial situation and crucial position to the running and future of the networ
k, it is only a matter of weeks before he is forced to leave and OPN descends in
to anarchy and chaos without a leader.

Fact: OPN is dying

It is official; netsplit.de confirms: OPN is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OPN community when netsplit.de confirmed that OPN market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. This news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. OPN is collapsing in complete disarray.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OPN's future. The hand writing is on the wall: OPN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for OPN because OPN is dying. Things are looking very bad for OPN. As many of us are already aware, OPN continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

In the past month, OPN has lost 3 servers. With the current count of 29 servers, it will logically be 9 months until there are no servers remaining at all. Obviously, the network will probably survive slightly longer than this; it may even drag on for a whole extra year, crawling along like an undead corpse.

Network operator lilo also faces a bleak future. With his rapidly deteriorating financial situation and crucial position to the running and future of the network, it is only a matter of weeks before he is forced to leave and OPN descends into anarchy and chaos without a leader.

Fact: OPN is dying

To take a page out of OPN guidelines for catalysts:

"Catalysts try to resolve problems, not through the use of authority and special privilege, but by fostering consensus, gently nudging participants in the direction of more appropriate behaviour and by generally reducing the level of confrontation rather than confronting users with problems... An important characteristic of successful catalysts is the infrequency with which they wear authority or invoke special privilege."

Catalysts will always endeavour to take the time to carefully explain to someone how they are out of line with channel guidelines and mediate between opposing parties before using privileges are a last resort When possible, one catalyst will consult with another before this stage is even reached.

We try not to let our own personal emotions or beliefs get in the way of channel administration. Our role isn't to control the discussion by kicking out people who are 'on the other side of the fence' (and thus cause envy), but to keep channels calm and keep them public by members of the open source community and the public.

If you do have a legitimate complaint against an catalyst in future, what I suggest you do is approach the other catalysts within that channel [/msg chanserv access #channel list]. Most are appointed and dismissed by the consensus of a majority of other catalysts within a channel. If your complaint is legitimate, then other catalysts will reprimand him/her and may revoke their access if necessary in future. If you are still unsatisfied, then you may take it to higher levels such as those within the #openprojects for reconciliation.

OPN does not take lightly to access abuse as action such as what you have described would be very detrimental to the reputation of the OPN community as a whole. OPN is there to "provide an interactive environment for free software and open source projects and support groups", and we will always try to make everyone feel like they can be a welcome part of this community.