Intro to IRC (Activity)

Introduction to IRC

Preparation:

Description	Learners will gain a basic understanding of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) as well as the role that IRC plays in open source software development. Participants will learn about IRC etiquette and explore the interactions that occur between members of an open source community.
Source	Communication and Community
Prerequisite Knowledge	None.
Estimated Time to Completion	60-75 minutes
Learning Objectives	1) Understand the importance of IRC as it relates to open source software development, 2) Become familiar with the interactions that occur in an IRC channel, 3) Learn how to connect to an IRC server and join a channel.
Materials/Environment	Internet access, a Web browser and an IRC client.
Additional Information	Other IRC resources: http://www.irchelp.org; http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC
Rights	Licensed CC BY-SA

Background:

IRC, which stands for Internet Relay Chat, is an essential tool used by open source software developers. It allows members of the community, or those interested in becoming involved in the community, to communicate 24/7, regardless of their geographic location. IRC is much like Instant Messaging with a group.

Bear in mind that ‘talking’ is not always a requirement. You will learn a great deal by ‘listening’, especially in the beginning. When you join a channel, it is not necessary to identify yourself or to say hi, you can simply 'lurk'. Feel free to ask questions, and note that it is not necessary to ask first if you can ask a question.

Directions:

Part 1 – Walk through of IRC Conversation

Download this sample IRC Conversation

This conversation is part of a meeting being run with a meetbot. A meetbot is bot software that works in IRC channels to help take notes for a meeting. Note the dark green entries in the conversation that begin with a hashmark. These are meetbot commands.

• The first line of the conversation shows "darci" starting the meeting.
• "totally" is the name of the meetbot.
• The #topics command sets the topic of the conversation and is one of several commands.

As you review the conversation, you should:

1. Pay attention to the interactions that occur between community members.
2. Ignore the technical terms.
3. Accept that the content may be beyond your understanding at this point, your first step in being productively lost.
4. Place your answers to the following questions on your wiki page:
   • How do people interact?
   • What is the pattern of communication?
   • Are there any terms that seem to have special meaning?
   • Can you make any other observations?
5. Now look at the results of the meetbot. This shows you how each meetbot command is formatted into a legible page that summarizes the meeting. Some additional formatting may be needed, but it certainly provides a great starting point. Here's a link to the final version of the meeting notes.

Part 2 – Installing and Starting an IRC Client

There are many IRC clients to choose from, below is a brief list of suggestions:

1. Windows: HydraIRC (http://www.hydrairc.com/)
2. Linux: Konversation (http://konversation.kde.org/)
3. Mac OS X: Colloquy (http://colloquy.info/)
4. Firefox add-on: ChatZilla is a multi-platform add-on that will work on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X

For example, if you have Firefox running, it is quite easy to install the ChatZilla add-on.

1. Click Tools from the main menu and then choose Add-ons. The Get Add-ons tab should be selected on the left. If you don’t see the main menu, click the down-arrow next to the Firefox button in the upper, left corner, hover over Options and select Menu Bar.
2. Type ChatZilla in the search box found in the upper, right corner.
3. Click the install button to the right of the ChatZilla add-on. Note that ChatZilla is available in a number of languages, so be sure to select the appropriate one.
4. Restart Firefox.

Part 3 – Join and Observe Channel Discussion

1. Select an HFOSS project from the list of HFOSS communities.
2. Join the project's channel and observe the discussions that occur for 24 hours.
   • You might find a list of IRC commands for the novice helpful. And a more complete list may be useful as you become used to IRC.
   • Note that depending on the project, its size and the amount of activity on a project's channel, it may be necessary to determine an appropriate day for this observation. You might attempt to determine when the developers meet and schedule your observation for this day. You can join the channel and identify yourself as _afk (away from keyboard, for example joe_afk using the /nick command). When you return the following day, you will be able to observe the communication that occurred during the previous 24 hour period.
3. Summarize your observations on your faculty wiki page.
4. If you haven't visited the Foss2serve channel yet, now would be a good time. You will find other participants as well as Foss2serve team members here. It's a great place to pose questions or offer assistance to others.
   • Connect to the server via the command: /server irc.freenode.net
   • Join the foss2serve channel via the command: /join #foss2serve