I ran an IRCnet server for 15 years or so and when the PSU crapped out I decided 15 years would be enough. If I were to give one piece of advice: forget IRC.

I ran an IRCnet server for 15 years or so and when the PSU crapped out I decided 15 years would be enough. If I were to give one piece of advice: forget IRC. If you want to make a free, large scale chat system, just forget you ever saw IRC. There are no solutions in that neighborhood.