Freenode
Freenode is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) chat network, used mostly for discussing open source software projects.
The network now known as freenode initally began as a GNU/Linux support channel on the Network EFNet IRC. By 1998, the channel had grown into a network called Open Projects Net, with about 200 users. In 2002, Open Projects Net became Freenode, a division of Peer-Directed Projects Center, a tax-exempt corporation. Freenode has since grown rapidly and now has over 50,000 users and 40,000 channels.[1] Some of freenode's most heavily used channels are those for open source projects such as ubuntu, archlinux, and python.[2]
The Freenode IRC Network can be accessed by going to the Freenode Web IRC page, and also through several IRC Chat clients, including chatzilla, IceChat, and xChat.