IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Turns 36, It's Older Than the World Wide Web
OUR IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels are somewhat of a "sleeping giant" (and source of envy, of sorts). They're impossible to kill, no matter how hard one tries (many tried over the years, especially in 2009; how can one forget what happened back then?). We've used IRC for over 16 years (as a site; my usage of IRC goes back to the early 1990s) and yesterday I got to give a formal explanation of how IRC works and what makes it so good. There are probably well over 1,000 IRC networks worldwide, but those of a decent size are numbered at around 500 (there are more decent-sized ones that are not in this list). Let's estimate (or 'guesstimate') that 1,000-2,000 totally independent IRC networks exist around the world. That's a lot!
Freenode very recently fell below the 10,000 channel threshold (average number of channels) and it languishes steadily if not rapidly: (see the first and second graphs from the top)
Somebody told me yesterday: "I cannot see where freenode get these user numbers reported in https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php .. like there's 4500 fake users included -- active channels seem to be so rare?"
"Anybody in here know where those users are hiding?"
Many are likely bots and bouncers. We're guessing that's why OFTC recently "lost" about 20,000 'users'.
IRC is still alive and kicking. It probably has at least another decade "left in the tank..."
Will IRC outlive its creator?
IRC cannot be "shut down" or "end service" because it is merely a protocol. Anybody can deploy IRC (or ircd, an IRC daemon) and then use one of the hundreds of IRC clients available (for many platforms). We've coded some IRC software of our own (it's in our Git repository).
The World Wide Web (or "Web" for short) was born 35 years ago and IRC was born 36 years ago.
Wikipedia says "IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a BBS called OuluBox at the University of Oulu in Finland..." It does not say which date in August, so let's just say... August! Jarkko Oikarinen's official CV (he's still in Google Sweden AB, by the way) does not even specify which month in 1998.
Happy birthday, IRC. Thank you, Jarkko Oikarinen. █
