irker history 

2.18: 2016-06-02 
  Add the ability to set the notification-message template (Debian bug #824512)

2.17: 2016-03-14
  Add a reconnect delay (Debian bug #749650).
  Add proxy support (requres setting some variables in the source file).
  Use git abbreviated hash to address Debian complaints.

2.16: 2016-02-18
  Code now runs under either Python 2 or Python 3

2.15: 2016-01-12
  Emergency backout of getaddrinfo, it randomly hangs.

2.14: 2016-01-12
  Lookup with getaddrinfo allows use with IPv6.
  Documentation improvements.

2.13: 2015-06-14
  SSL validation fix.
  Hardening against Unicode decode errors.
  irk becomes a library so it can be re-used.

2.12: 2014-10-22
  Catch erroneous UTF-8 or non-UTF-8 from servers.
  Also autodetect the right logging device under FreeBSD: /var/run/syslog

2.11: 2014-06-20
  With -i, message string argument now optional, stdin is read if it is absent.
  Auto-adapt to BSD & OS X log device as well as Linux's.

2.10: 2014-06-19
  irk no longer fails on ircs channel URLs.

2.9: 2014-06-01
  If irkerd is running in background, log to /dev/syslog (facility daemon).
  New -H option to set host listening address.
  Add support for using CertFP to auth to the IRC server, and document it.

2.8: 2014-05-30
  Various minor improvements to irk.
  Cope better with branch names containing slashes.

2.7: 2014-03-15
  Add support for ircs:// and SSL/TLS connections to IRC servers.
  Add support for per-URL usernames and passwords.

2.6: 2014-02-04
   Fix for an infinite loop on failing to connect to IRC

2.5: 2013-12-24
   Bug fix - remove a deadlock we inherited from irclib.

2.4: 2013-12-03
   Bug fix release - some users reported failure to connect with 2.3.
   Also prevent a crash if Unicode shows up in the wrong place.

2.3: 2013-11-30
  -i option enables immediate sending of one line in foreground.

2.2: 2013-11-29
  Fixed Unicode processing - got busted in 2.0 when irclib was removed.
  Show Python traceback on higher debug levels.

2.1: 2013-11-26
  A performance improvement in the git repository hook.
  Documentation polishing.

2.0: 2013-11-16
  The dependency on irclib is gone.
  An email delivery method, suitable for use on SourceForge.
  irkerhook can now be used as a hg changegroup hook.
  Prevent misbehavior on UTF-8 in commit metadata.
  Fix a crash bug on invalid hostnames.

1.20: 2013-05-17
  Compatibility back to Python 2.4 (provided simplejson is present).
  Increased anti-flood delay to avoid trouble with freenode.

1.19: 2013-05-06
  Fixed a minor bug in argument processing

1.18: 2013-04-16
  Added -l option; irker can now be used as a channel monitor.
  Added -n and -p option: the nick can be forced and authenticated.

1.17: 2013-02-03
  Various minor fixes and bulletproofing.

1.16: 2013-01-24
  Deal gracefully with non-ASCII author names and '|' in the command line.

1.15: 2012-12-08
  Don't append an extra newline in the Subversion hook.

1.14: 2012-11-26
  irclib 5.0 and urlparse compatibility fixes.

1.13: 2012-11-06
  Fix for a very rare thread race found by AI0867.
  Work around a midesign in the IRC library.

1.12: 2012-10-11
  Emergency workaround for a Unicode-handling error buried deep in irclib.
  The IRC library at version 3.2 or later is required for this version!
  Only ship to freenode #commits by default.

1.11: 2012-10-10
  Code is now fully Unicode-safe.
  A 'cialike' option emulates the file-summary behavior on the old CIA service.

1.10: 2012-10-09
  Expire disconnected connections if they aren't needed or can't reconnect.
  Eventlet support removed - didn't play well with the library mutex.

1.9: 2012-10-08
  Proper mutex locks prevent an occasional thread crash on session timeout.
  There's now systemd installation support for irkerd.

1.8: 2012-10-06
  It's now possible to send to nick URLs.
  Cope gracefully if an IRC server dies or hangs during the nick handshake.

1.7: 2012-10-05
  Optional metadata filtering with a user-specified command.
  irkerd code is now armored against IRC library errors in the delivery threads.

1.6: 2012-10-04
  In 1.5 trying to appease pylint broke the Mercurial hook.
  Added credits for contributors in hacking.txt.
  Fix the aging out of connections when we hit a resource limit.

1.5: 2012-10-03
  Mercurial support.
  Shorten nick negotiation by choosing a random nick base from a large range.
  Make irkerd exit cleanly on control-C.

1.4: 2012-10-02
  Graceful handling of server disconnects and kicks.
  Distribution now inclues an installable irkerd plist for Mac OS/X.
  The color variable is no longer boolean; may be miRC or ANSI.
  The installation instructions for irkerhook.py have changed!

1.3: 2012-10-01
  Support for an irker.conf file to set irkerhook variables under Subversion.
  Color highlighting of notification fields can be enabled. 
  irkerhook.py now has its own manual page.
  Added channelmax variable for rate-limiting.
  irkerd now uses green threads, with much lower overhead.
  Fix a bug in handling of channel names with no prefix.

1.2: 2012-09-30
  All segments of a message with embedded newlines are now transmitted.
  Message reduction - irkerhook drops the filelist on excessively long ones.
  Shell quote hardening in irkerhook.py and some anti-DoS logic.

1.1: 2012-09-28
  Add a delay to avoid threads spinning on the empty-queue-check, eating CPU.
  Fix a bug in reporting of multi-file commits.

1.0: 2012-09-27
  First production version, somewhat rushed by the sudden death of cia.vc
  on 24 September.