Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 04:40:03 -0800 (PST) From: Bruce Gingery <bruce@TotSysSoft.com> To: freebsd-ports Subject: Re: ports/2241: eggdrop - A special TCL tool - an IRC Robotic Client. Message-ID: <199702031240.EAA26809@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR ports/2241; it has been noted by GNATS. From: Bruce Gingery <bruce@TotSysSoft.com> To: bitblt@sky.net Cc: freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ports/2241: eggdrop - A special TCL tool - an IRC Robotic Client. Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 05:31:54 -0700 (MST) Running ANY robotic package against a services, of any kind, without permission is a way to stir up trouble. Quite a number of IRC nets permit reasonably used robotic processes. Some restrict such things to those built-into clients as scripts, with a human also present on that login. Others also allow robotic agents for various uses. Most of the IRCnets have built-in "channel service robots", and eggdrop has been shown to be (in recent versions) hardy, as well as eminently controllable. To omit eggdrop from the PORTS collection just because it could be abused means that also the Perl5 libwww should be omitted from the ports collection because robotic WWW clients can be run which if run in depth-first search patterns and without regard to "robots.txt" can shut down a WWW server, if run from a higher bandwidth connection than that used by the WWW server. Eggdrop, unlike most of the IRCbots, extends IRC significantly, and can actually help to support IRC backbones. Eggies have the built-in capacity to run a parallel "botnet" which can both cross IRCnets (without interfering with the normal IRCnet operation), and form entire communication paths which place NO load on the server. This includes file transfer support (via normal DCC file transfers), chat-nets and the like. While Eggdrop is not the "end all" application for the internet, it can and does when used properly, extend IRC functionality. Just because it also contains a potential for abuse, is not a reason to drop it from the ports. There are clear recommendations to people installing Eggdrop in its documentation that they NOT direct such bots at servers which do not allow them. It is such nuisance usages, along with other various "warring" behaviors (which some other IRCbots are designed for) which bring knee-jerk "G-Lines" and even "K-Lines" mentioned by bitblt@sky.net. Bruce Gingery <bgingery@gtcs.com> On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 bitblt@sky.net wrote: :}Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 15:07:07 +0000 :}From: bitblt@sky.net :}To: freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org, bgingery@gtcs.com :}Subject: Re: ports/2241: eggdrop - A special TCL tool - an IRC Robotic Client. :} :}Running this package is a good way to get your site banned from many irc :}servers. I therefore urge the FreeBSD team to OMIT this package from :}the FreeBSD distribution. :}
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