The new Eu-irc.net has already came to a split. The network existed for about 1,5 year and consisted of an average of 1500 users. After a disagreement the French admins decided to split off from the network, and form Eu-irc.org.
“The domain holder (Solaris) was insisting since months on installing UnrealIRCD’s module m_spy to log private dialogs. All French staff (representing 90% of users) were totally opposed to using this module because they are deeply attached to respect of users privacy”, said Elephantman, one of the French splitting admins, in a reaction to IRC-Junkie.
The reason Solaris requested this implementation was a request from the German police to supply information regarding a chat that took place on the network. “But the police letter only actually demands us to log connection information, IP/Nicknames”, Elephantman continues. “The real point is that he was using this demand as an excuse to pass through something that would let him spy what he calls “spyadmins”, totally unacceptable to our eyes.”
As the French admins declined the implementation Solaris stopped administration of the servers, communication and implementation of security updates. “After several months trying to unblock this situation, the French staff finally decided to split out, to be able to get the network going forwards again.”
The French part which carried the majority of the users (about 1300 of the 1500 on average) is now looking for other European networks to join forces and form a new European network.
We tried to contact both Solaris and Eu-irc.net for a reaction but got no responce.