The '''Open and Free Technology Community''' ('''OFTC''') is an [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]] [[computer network|network]] which is particularly popular with the [[free software community]].
The OFTC was founded in late [[2001]]<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.advogato.org/proj/OFTC/ | accessdate=2007-10-03 | title=Advogato: Project info for OFTC}}</ref>, by and large by people who were previously working on [[freenode]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/05/02/the-liberation-of-freenode-part-3/ | accessdate=2007-10-03 | title=The Liberation of Freenode, Part 3}}</ref> 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]] in [[July_2002|July 2002]], and [[Software_in_the_Public_Interest|SPI]] became the legal owner of the project's [[Internet ___domain]]s.
The IRC network itself runs the oftc-ircd software, which is a branch (patchset) of [[IRCD-Hybrid]] version 7. Notably, it supports [[Transport Layer Security|SSL]] and [[IPv6]] connections. The network also runs the [[IRC services]] NickServ and ChanServ, among others.
