IRC isn’t just old school - enriching community through text-based chat

IRC is a great medium for communities to get together, answer users’ questions and collaborate. Although it may seem primitive, its low-bandwidth consumption and wide variety of ways to access it make it an ideal way for people to connect from any location or background.

There are virtually unlimited clients (programs) available to connect to IRC networks. Their UI does the work of presenting the protocol in a friendly format, tailored to the user’s needs.

Many popular FOSS projects are on IRC already, and it is likely that most of the open source software you use will have their own channel (or channels) for discussion.

Aside from chatting, IRC allows further features & extensions by 3rd party tools and services. For example, some individuals & companies run bouncers. Bouncers stay permanently online and connect to whichever IRC network and channels you wish. When you come back online, they replay your messages back to you. This allows you to maintain a constant connection to IRC without actually keeping your personal machine online all the time.

Also, most IRC networks have services, which are bots that appear as fellow users. They help you register nicknames and channels, and help with other network-related tasks—but more on that later.

Although IRC use in general has been declining, the use of IRC networks meant for project collaboration, like freenode, has increased consistently.

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