Reading over Steve’s fine Q&A on yesterday’s Java news I noticed the frequency that he mentioned an IRC channel, and not just our own, #redmonk. While we’ve had more success with #redmonk than any of us expected — and we have the #redmonk community to thank for that, they’re the ones who drive discussions there much more than us — one of the big let downs for me is that many IT shops block IRC access. This means that many of my developer pals, architects, and others who in the confines of a fire-wall can’t participate.
Which is not only a shame for us and #redmonk, but for those companies as well. For example, there was a highly interactive Q&A in one of Sun’s IRC channels yesterday, and it’s continuing into today. That is, if you were one of these fire-wall protected folks, you’re missing out on the chance to talk directly with Sun people about open sourcing Java.
Instead, of course, I guess you can pay for information and access (or read our blogs ;>). That’s a little over the top in selling this port un-blocking, but blocking IRC creates barriers to accessing the development community that companies could be directly profiting from.
There are web front-ends to IRC (I’m too inpatient to set one up) and there’s even Campfire. But, there’s nothing quite like the raw-firehose (and scale when it comes to Campfire) that IRC affords.
Sure, there’s piracy and all sorts of hijinks to worry about, but come one, surely that’s no reason to cut off an information flow that will give companies quick and free access to information and people who can help make them successful.
Update: to be fair, Wired published a story with some pretty good reasons to block IRC, thanks to mray for the link.
Tags: behindthefirewall, irc, ports, redmonkadvice
Well, particularly in financial and other regulated industries, there is a real reason for this: compliance.
This is the same reason that web-mail, IM, forums, and the like are all blocked. If it's a communication medium, it's use probably has to be retained. That's not to say that we can't easily retain IRC communications, but the cost and risk of the process outweighs the perceived benefit by default.
(On the other hand, there are always exceptions made with business justification – but those situations are usually closely monitored).
Oh, and I should add that many of the regulations apply to any publicly traded company, not just "regulated" industries.
The short answer is, sometimes it's easier to block these things than try to figure out whether it's ok or not, and given the stiff penalties it's better to err on the side of caution.
Sure, there's always the exciting regulations. Good times!
And, of course, there's all them zombies!