Open and Free Technology Community: Difference between revisions

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The '''Open and Free Technology Community''' ('''OFTC''') is an [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]] [[computer network|network]] that provides collaboration services to members of the [[free software community]] in any part of the world. OFTC is an associated project of [[Software in the Public Interest]], a non-profit organization which was founded to help organizations develop and distribute open hardware and software. The network's servers are accessible via [[Round-robin DNS]] from the [[URL]] [irc://irc.oftc.net irc.oftc.net]. As of October 2019, OFTC has 31 volunteer staff members, and 16 sponsors.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oftc.net/staff|title=Staff|website=[[Open and Free Technology Community|OFTC]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191014050831/https://www.oftc.net/staff/|archive-date=2019-10-14|url-status=dead|access-date=2019-10-13}}</ref>

== History ==

OFTC was founded at the end of 2001 by a group of experienced members of the [[open source]] and [[free software]] communities aiming to provide these communities with better communication, development, and support infrastructure. OFTC is ruled by a written constitution and the staff elect the officers among each other using a voting mechanism. OFTC became a member project of [[Software in the Public Interest]] (SPI) in July 2002, and SPI became the legal owner of the project's [[Internet ___domain|___domain names]].

The ability for all users to connect using [[Transport Layer Security]] was added in April 2016 with the use of [[Public key certificate|SSL certificates]] from the [[Let's Encrypt]] [[certificate authority]].<ref name="home">{{Cite web|url=https://www.oftc.net/|title=OFTC - Home|website=[[Open and Free Technology Community|OFTC]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191013061513/https://www.oftc.net/|archive-date=2019-10-13|url-status=dead|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref>

In 2016, OFTC was bridged to the [[Matrix (protocol)|Matrix]] instant messaging network.<ref>{{cite web |title=New IRC Integrations: OFTC and Snoonet |url=https://medium.com/@RiotChat/new-irc-integrations-oftc-and-snoonet-b88883a58303 |website=Medium |access-date=22 October 2020 |language=en |date=27 September 2016}}</ref>

== Projects ==

OFTC currently develops three projects for its purposes: "oftc-hybrid" (a fork of the Hybrid [[IRCd|IRC daemon]]),<ref>{{Citation|title=OFTC's branch of Hybrid IRCd|date=2019-05-11|url=https://github.com/oftc/oftc-hybrid|publisher=[[Open and Free Technology Community|OFTC]]|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref> "oftc-ircservices" (the IRC services suite),<ref>{{Citation|title=OFTC's IRC Services|date=2019-08-13|url=https://github.com/oftc/oftc-ircservices|publisher=[[Open and Free Technology Community|OFTC]]|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref> and "oftc-geodns" (a [[Geolocation|GeoIP]] DNS responder to handle user distribution across the servers).<ref>{{Citation|title=OFTC operator and user tools|date=2019-10-14|url=https://github.com/oftc/oftc-tools|publisher=[[Open and Free Technology Community|OFTC]]|access-date=2019-10-14}}</ref> OFTC uses [[GitHub]] [[Repository (version control)|repositories]] to host its [[codebase]] and [[Bug tracking system|issue tracker]].<ref name="home" /> Prospective users of the software can find tarball releases at https://www.oftc.net/releases/, named according to [[Software versioning|semantic versioning]]. Developers contributing to the code base should read and be familiar with [[Subversion (software)|Subversion]].

== References ==