IRC is based around the concept of rooms. You can only talk to other users inside that room, and all messages are public (by default) to the room.
Actually that isn't true. When sending a message over IRC, the command to send to a specific user and to send to a channel are exactly the same. There is no "default" message destination, channels merely exist to facilitate one-to-many and many-to-many communication, as opposed to one-to-one communication, as ICQ does.
A system like ICQ is based around the concept of lists of people. You can send messages to anyone on your list, and the messages and generally private to that person. Its restricted by its generally centralized and proprietary architecture and protocols.
The "lists of people" concept in ICQ is entirely client side, and can be done in IRC using NOTIFYs. Client-to-client stuff is handled using CTCP and DCC (Client-To-Client-Protocol and Direct-Client-to-Client respectively).
What IRC lacks is encrypted communications and established user accounts - at the moment, relatively little data is saved about users, and their nick can often change hands easily, allowing people to pretend to be or me mistaken for others... This is one of the few advantages of the centralization of ICQ and AIM.
If someone wrote an IRC client based around watching notifies and sending private messages instead of channels, one could just as easily do the same stuff and more that ICQ does with IRC. IRC is a more mature protocol, more widely used, and isn't proprietary like ICQ. The technology has been around for quite a while, the only difference is that Mirabilis came up with a new user interface that is less intrusive than the average IRC client. Someone want to do this with IRC?
ID Software does something like that, only the opposite - rather than publishing the game engine, they publish the game logic to enable people to create new variations on the classic shoot-em-up, like Air Quake where you fly around in planes or Quake Superheros where you get to have super powers. The numerous mods out there greatly enhance Quake's replayability, and so greatly drives sales of the main game. It's not completly open source, but it is a good example of the synergistic relationship between the game's creators and an active development community.
I own most (if not all) of the Kosmic CDs already, and am going to order the '98 archive. It's great stuff. Unfortunatly this is the second or third time they've been in such a crisis... Although I haven't actually downloaded music from them in a long time (I just order the CDs - doesn't take up hard disk space, don't have to deal with dodgy mod players), I don't want to see Kosmic go.
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IRC is based around the concept of rooms. You can only talk to other users inside that room, and all messages are public (by default) to the room.
Actually that isn't true. When sending a message over IRC, the command to send to a specific user and to send to a channel are exactly the same. There is no "default" message destination, channels merely exist to facilitate one-to-many and many-to-many communication, as opposed to one-to-one communication, as ICQ does.
A system like ICQ is based around the concept of lists of people. You can send messages to anyone on your list, and the messages and generally private to that person. Its restricted by its generally centralized and proprietary architecture and protocols.
The "lists of people" concept in ICQ is entirely client side, and can be done in IRC using NOTIFYs. Client-to-client stuff is handled using CTCP and DCC (Client-To-Client-Protocol and Direct-Client-to-Client respectively).
What IRC lacks is encrypted communications and established user accounts - at the moment, relatively little data is saved about users, and their nick can often change hands easily, allowing people to pretend to be or me mistaken for others... This is one of the few advantages of the centralization of ICQ and AIM.
If someone wrote an IRC client based around watching notifies and sending private messages instead of channels, one could just as easily do the same stuff and more that ICQ does with IRC. IRC is a more mature protocol, more widely used, and isn't proprietary like ICQ. The technology has been around for quite a while, the only difference is that Mirabilis came up with a new user interface that is less intrusive than the average IRC client. Someone want to do this with IRC?
ID Software does something like that, only the opposite - rather than publishing the game engine, they publish the game logic to enable people to create new variations on the classic shoot-em-up, like Air Quake where you fly around in planes or Quake Superheros where you get to have super powers. The numerous mods out there greatly enhance Quake's replayability, and so greatly drives sales of the main game. It's not completly open source, but it is a good example of the synergistic relationship between the game's creators and an active development community.
I own most (if not all) of the Kosmic CDs already, and am going to order the '98 archive. It's great stuff. Unfortunatly this is the second or third time they've been in such a crisis... Although I haven't actually downloaded music from them in a long time (I just order the CDs - doesn't take up hard disk space, don't have to deal with dodgy mod players), I don't want to see Kosmic go.