The ratbox team both IRCd and Services appear to be on the ball as they aim to get the latest versions of there respected software packages into the land of stable. Lee H was the first to announce the release of Ratbox-services with version 1.2.0 RC2 which has a minor set of fixes so i would imagine a stable release is not so far off for the services package. Later in the week we then had Aaron announce the immediate release of ircd-ratbox 3.0.0 beta 4 which sports a rather larger changelog so i would suspect another beta yet and maybe two RC's then this will be moving stable also.

The changelogs of both are printed below:

Services:

ratbox-services-1.2.0rc2

• updated bulgarian translations from ongeboren
• update example.lang translation file
• update packaged pcre to 7.7

I managed to get a little time the other day so i decided to check up on what was one of the biggest stories of last year that being the IRSeek IRC based content search engine, thankfully Ariel and Eran we're happy yo entertain my questions once again and below is another interview with the IRSeek visionaries. This email was conducted via email and once again we would like to thank them for there time - we're aware people out there are very busy but to get two interviews and prompt responses its kickass ( had to add that since half the developers out there are too busy to talk! )

1. How are things with IRSeek on the whole ?
As you may know, we have made a lot of changes to the service since the last time we've been in touch. But, as a whole, the service is constantly growing both in channels and in users.

2. When IRSeek was launched it was met with a fair few privacy rants, how has this effected your service ?
The service has gone through some serious changes in order to comply with the concerns and requests of the users. As you can see in our policy page and blog (http://www.irseek.com/blog), the service is now based on the approval of the individual channel operators (or contacts).