Open and Free Technology Community
Encyclopedia
The Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) is an IRC
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. Their servers are all accessible from the domain name
[irc://irc.oftc.net irc.oftc.net]. OFTC currently has 32 volunteer staff members, and 21 sponsors.
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 domain names.
DNS responder to handle user distribution across the servers. OFTC uses Trac
for its source browsing and bug tracking. Prospective users of the software can find tarball releases at http://www.oftc.net/releases/. Developers contributing to the code base should read and be familiar with Subversion.
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
that provides collaboration services to members of the free software community
Free software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
in any part of the world. OFTC is an associated project of Software in the Public Interest
Software in the Public Interest
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is a non-profit organization formed to help other organizations create and distribute free/open-source software and open-source hardware...
, a non-profit organization which was founded to help organizations develop and distribute open hardware and software. Their servers are all accessible from the domain name
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
[irc://irc.oftc.net irc.oftc.net]. OFTC currently has 32 volunteer staff members, and 21 sponsors.
History
OFTC was founded at the end of 2001 by a group of experienced members of the open sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
and free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
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
Software in the Public Interest
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is a non-profit organization formed to help other organizations create and distribute free/open-source software and open-source hardware...
(SPI) in July 2002, and SPI became the legal owner of the project's domain names.
Projects
OFTC currently develops 3 projects for its purposes: "oftc-hybrid", the IRC daemon, "oftc-ircservices", the IRC services suite, and "oftc-oftcdns", a GeoIPGeolocation
Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object, such as a radar, mobile phone or an Internet-connected computer terminal...
DNS responder to handle user distribution across the servers. OFTC uses Trac
Trac
Trac is an open source, web-based project management and bug-tracking tool. The program is inspired by CVSTrac, and was originally named svntrac due to its ability to interface with Subversion. It is developed and maintained by Edgewall Software....
for its source browsing and bug tracking. Prospective users of the software can find tarball releases at http://www.oftc.net/releases/. Developers contributing to the code base should read and be familiar with Subversion.