Hysterical Raisins. The first #bugs channel was created on the irc.oz.org network by Patrick Kelso in early 2005. At some stage, perhaps due to the instability 2006, someone attempted to create a backup channel on freenode, being the obvious choice due to it's popularity. However, there were hoops to jump through in registering the channel properly, so it stayed as ##bugs for many years. This was only more recently addressed by Andrew Perry so that we had proper operator control of the channel.

In the meantime, after a second bout of instability and loss of redundant oz.org servers, in ~2010 we decided to setup a backup channel on OFTC, where we could register everything properly and gain op status. So then there were three.

In late 2018, it was announced that the irc.oz.org was to be shutdown. Admins from austnet offered to take over the DNS and merge the networks in order to minimise the disruption to existing channels. Most of the existing users migrated to austnet at that time. There was a group of users of the oz.org service who wanted to rejuvinate it, and so the merger never happened. Additionally, some of the members of #bugs on oz.org did not want to join austnet at all and, in fact, some were actively involved in resurrecting and maintaining oz.org.

This left us with four #bugs channels.

During the proposed transition, Callum Gibson started running a dodgy perl script to link the 4 services. He'd written this during one of the early periods of oz.org stability where the servers would often end up in split-brain mode (*.net *.split) with some users on each server. He decided to revive it in case new or infrequent visitors ended up stranded on a channel where noone was looking, and so that cross-service conversation could be had without needing to work out how to edit one's IRC config, yet again.

There is some debate (as of mid 2019) as to whether to stay on AustNet (where nearly everyone had already migrated anyway), or to migrate back to OzOrg (which underwent an eleventh (twelfth?) hour resurrection), but one of these two is a sure bet. There will be a redirection notification on each channel if/when a single home channel is chosen.

Callum's personal opinion: as the strongest preferences fall in the OzOrg camp and it is considered by some to be a “spiritual home”, I believe we'll eventually re-consolidate on that server, even though that means a double migration. As it happens, almost everyone on AustNet is also on OzOrg.

Note: irc.oz.org is now a CNAME for irc.ozrg.net - you should use the latter in case the former goes away.