INFO 324
Team Process and Product
Week 6
Dr. Jennifer Booker
College of Information Science and
Technology
Drexel University
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Hislop
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Introduction
Agenda
• Test 1
• SDS Discussion
• Communication Tools
– IRC
– Collaborative editing (etherpad)
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Hislop
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Test 1!
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SDS Discussion
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Hislop
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
• One of the older forms of real time chat
• Created in 1989 and builds on ideas of prior
bulletin board (BBS) and chat systems
• Client/server technology is interesting but
hardly leading edge (RFC 2810, dated 2000)
– Mostly looks like clunky chat or IM
• Real interest is in FOSS use
– Culture
– Reasons for use
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Hislop
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IRC – Who Cares?
• Heavily used in FOSS world
• Technical advantage
– Works on all platforms at minimal net speed
– Un-moderated channel creation, joining, and
leaving are often allowed
• Social advantage
– Gives real time access to colleagues
– Meeting place and “water cooler” for teams
– Lurkers allowed
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Hislop
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Basic IRC
• Channel – basic mechanism for a group to
communicate; similar to a “chatroom”
– “In IRC the channel has a role equivalent to
that of the multicast group” (RFC 2810)
• Nick – your nickname; similar to “handle”
• Special roles
– IRC Operator has extra rights on IRC server
– Channel Operator has extra rights on some
channels
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Hislop
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Basic IRC
• Local client for each user
– Chatzilla (Firefox plug-in) irc://irc.freenode.net/
– mIRC (Windows), xChat (Linux and Windows)
– Web based clients Qwebirc app (runs
webchat.freenode.net)
• Networks of IRC servers
– Freenode, EFnet (Eris Free Network, “the
oldest and one of the largest IRC networks in
the world”), etc.
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Hislop
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Freenode
• “freenode is a special-purpose, not a
general-purpose, discussion network,
currently implemented on Internet Relay
Chat (IRC). It exists to support specific
communities. It provides an interactive
environment for coordination and support
of peer-directed projects, including those
relating to free software and open source.”
– http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#whatwhy
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IRC Commands
• Set your nickname
– Command: /nick name
– Example: /nick gwh
– Avoid tacky names like “evil_steve”
– Will want to register your nickname
• Join a channel
– Command: /join channelname
– Example: /join #fedora
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Hislop
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Freenode registration
• You are here in #fedora-unregistered
because you are not identified with
freenode. Please:
a) register http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup
(including email step)
b) configure your client to identify http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#identify and/or
/msg nickserv identify then
c) /join #fedora for support.
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IRC Commands
• Leave a channel
– Command: /leave channelname
– Example: /leave #fedora
• Send a message to the channel
– Command: just type the message
– Example: Hi there!
• To log in after you’re registered
– /msg nickserv identify <name> <password>
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Hislop
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Freenode IRC example
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IRC Bots
• Channel Bots
– Help operators maintain control of a channel
– “An IRC bot differs from a regular client in that
instead of providing interactive access to IRC
for a human user, it performs automated
functions” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat_bot
• Meet Bots
– Log IRC meetings
– Record and organize key items by commands
in IRC lines
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Hislop
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Meet Bot Commands
• #startmeeting - start the meeting.
• #meetingname <meeting-name>
• #meetingtopic <topic> - overall
meeting topic
• #topic <currenttopic> - topics in
the agenda
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Hislop
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Meet Bot Commands
• #action, #accepted, #agreed,
#chair, #help, #idea, #info,
#link, #rejected, etc. - as needed
• #commands - list of available commands
• #endmeeting
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Hislop
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IRC Demo
• IRC session
– #fedora or #ubuntu or #mysql
• Meetbot
– http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC
– http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopen
source/ has minutes from meetbot events
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More IRC Information
• Tutorials
– The IRC Prelude
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html
– An IRC Tutorial
http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html
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Hislop
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Collaborative Editing
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Hislop
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Collaborative Editing
• For both distributed work and face-to-face
collaboration
• Google docs
– Control and stability
– Google Wave (died 4/12)
– Google groups
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Hislop
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Collaborative Editing
• FOSS alternatives
– Etherpad (.org vs. .com)
– Gobby
• “Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting
multiple documents in one session and a multiuser chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms.”
– AbiCollab
• “AbiCollab.net is a collaboration service based
around the free AbiWord word processor.”
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Hislop
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Collaborative Editing
• Caution: control your own backups
– True for Web services in general
– More important as “cloud” computing grows
• Example: Pirate Pad German site
– Servers seized as part of a criminal investigation
– Stored pads became inaccessible for a time
– See: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=8BB560A31A64-6A71-CE3D7C5D461BB853
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Hislop
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In Your Future...
• Next week
– Blog Assignment about requirements and IRC
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Hislop
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