logo

drewdevault.com

[mirror] blog and personal website of Drew DeVault git clone https://hacktivis.me/git/mirror/drewdevault.com.git

How-does-IRC-federate.md (4833B)

    

  1. ---
  2. title: How does IRC's federation model compare to ActivityPub?
  3. date: 2021-07-03
  4. outputs: [html, gemtext]
  5. ---
  7. Today's federated revolution is led by ActivityPub, leading to the rise of
  8. services like Mastodon, PeerTube, PixelFed, and more. These new technologies
  9. have a particular approach to federation, which is coloring perceptions on what
  10. it actually means for a system to be federated at all. Today's post will explain
  11. how [Internet Relay Chat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat)
  12. (IRC), a technology first introduced in the late 1980's, does federation
  13. differently, and why.
  15. As IRC has aged, many users today have only ever used a few networks, such as
  16. Liberachat (or Freenode, up until several weeks ago), which use a particular IRC
  17. model which does not, at first glance, appear to utilize federation. After all,
  18. everyone types "irc.libera.chat" into their client and they all end up on the
  19. same network and in the same namespace. However, this domain name is backed by a
  20. round-robin resolver which will connect you to any of [several dozen
  21. servers][0], which are connected to each other[^1] and exchange messages on
  22. behalf of the users who reside on each. This is why we call them IRC *networks*
  23. — each is composed of a network of servers that work together.
  25. [^1]: Each server is not necessarily connected to each other server, by the way.  Messages can be relayed from one server to another repeatedly to reach the intended destination. This provides IRC with a greater degree of scalability when compared to ActivityPub, where each server must communicate directly with the servers whose users it needs to reach. It also makes IRC more vulnerable to outages partitioning the network; we call these incidents "netsplits".
  27. [0]: https://netsplit.de/servers/?net=Libera.Chat
  29. But why can't I send messages to users on [OFTC][1] from my Libera Chat session?
  30. Well, IRC networks are federated, but they are typically a *closed* federation,
  31. such that each network forms a discrete graph of servers, not interconnected
  32. with any of the others. In ActivityPub terms, imagine a version of Mastodon
  33. where, instead of automatically federating with new instances, server operators
  34. whitelisted each one, forming a closed graph of connected instances. Organize
  35. these servers under a single named entity ("Mastonet" or something), and the
  36. result is an "ActivityPub network" which operates in the same sense as a typical
  37. "IRC network".
  39. In contrast to Mastodon's open federation, allowing any server to peer with any 
  40. others without prior agreement between their operators, most IRC networks are
  41. closed. The network's servers may have independent operators, but they operate
  42. together under a common agreement, rather than the laissez-faire approach
  43. typical of[^2] ActivityPub servers. The exact organizational and governance
  44. models vary, but many of these networks have discrete teams of staff which
  45. serve as moderators[^3], often unrelated to the people responsible for the
  46. servers. The social system can be designed independently of the technology.
  48. [1]: https://www.oftc.net
  50. [^2]: Typical, but not universal.
  51. [^3]: There are two classes of moderators on IRC: oppers and ops. The former is responsible for the network, and mainly concerns themselves with matters of spam, user registration, settling disputes, and supporting ops. The ops are responsible for specific channels (spaces for discussion) and can define and enforce further rules at their discretion, within any limits imposed by the host network.
  53. Among IRC networks, there are degrees of openness. Libera Chat, the largest
  54. network, is run by a single governing organization, using servers donated by
  55. (and in the possession of) independent sponsors. Many smaller networks are
  56. run on as few as one server, and some larger networks (particularly older ones)
  57. are run by many independent operators acting like more of a cooperative.
  58. [EFnet](http://efnet.org), the oldest network, is run in this manner — you
  59. can even [apply to become an operator][2] yourself.
  61. [2]: http://www.efnet.org/?module=docs&doc=16
  63. We can see from this that the idea of federation is flexible, allowing us to
  64. build a variety of social and operational structures. There's no single right
  65. answer — approaches like IRC are able to balance many different benefits
  66. and drawbacks of their approach, such as balancing a reduced level of user
  67. mobility with a stronger approach to moderation and abuse reduction, while
  68. simultaneously enjoying the cost and scalability benefits of a federated design.
  69. Other federations, like Matrix, email, and Usenet, have their own set of
  70. tradeoffs. What unifies them is the ability to scale to a large size without
  71. expensive infrastructure, under the social models which best suit their users'
  72. needs, without a centralizing capital motive.