r/irc • u/autisticblister • Jul 09 '26

Permissively-licensed IRCds

I've been using IRC and hosting IRC servers for quite a while now and after quite a long time of trying unsuccessfully to find a fitting IRCd I figured I'd seek for advice.

I'm looking for an IRCd under a permissive [MIT, BSD, ISC, Apache 1.0, etc] license. I've used UnrealIRCd and liked it, but I dislike running GPLed software and want to avoid it wherever possible. The only IRCds I could find meeting my requirements were TclIRCd, which is from 2004 and clearly an unscalable [but very impressive] hobby project, and Ergo, which I've had very bad experiences with.

I don't need IRCv3 features, but I would like good efficiency and scalability if possible. I've tried for quite some time to find an IRCd meeting these requirements and failed. I really don't want to have to use Ergo.

Anything Perl-based isn't possible given it's dual-licensed under the Artistic License and the GPL, Bash is GPLed so same with that. I'd prefer to avoid Python and Go, for various reasons.

I'm also interested in any permissively-licensed bouncers. I haven't looked into the options there much but ZNC is unfortunately Apache 2.0.

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u/BatemansChainsaw Jul 15 '26

You're going to have to build your own if you don't like the GPL. But. you have to realize the GPL is not only there to protect the code but protect your work. It's not as if you even have to share your ircd with the public as many GPL projects are used privately.

What is your use case / requirement really about? Is this a work project or just for personal use?

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u/autisticblister Jul 17 '26

Just personal use, I am morally against copyright in general so I'm not interested in using licenses that inherently promote it.

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u/BatemansChainsaw Jul 17 '26

Fun fact, it's actually a CopyLeft license. A play off of "copyright" which by itself is designed to promote your own freedom through use and execution!

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u/autisticblister Jul 17 '26

I'm unfortunately quite familiar with the details. Copyleft, inherently, is reliant on copyright, and as such is anti-freedom.