Frequently Asked Questions

I already run Anope/Atheme, is there a reason I should run another services package?

PyPsd isn’t an ordinary services package. Instead of trying to provide NickServ, ChanServ and other services that almost every network already runs, PyPsd provides services that are usually overlooked, or provided using custom-built software. This includes, but isn’t limited to:

  • CTCP VERSION/WEBSITE statistics tracking, and banning based off VERSION responses
  • Internets bot, to provide quick and simple Google, Youtube, Weather, and Translation services for your users
  • Quotes bot, to provide a nice and simple utility for your users to add, track, and recall quotes from their channel

In particular, having bots that provide these sorts of services help dissuade users from bringing in their own bots to do the job for them. Isn’t it nicer to have one single, unified experience across your network, and have one utility everyone can use instead of a bunch more bots connected to your network?

Warning

PyPsd’s module auth system does not support Atheme by default. You will need to code the support in yourself, for the modules you wish to run. Our auth system also does not work with stock Anope 1.9 (since we use a custom command to check channel-user authorization), however, we will soon support stock Anope 2.0.

Isn’t Python too slow to run these for any decently-sized network?

Surprisingly not!

While regular Python (CPython) may be too slow to provide decent network services, PyPsd can be run under an alternative interpreter called PyPy (This is in fact the recommended way to run PyPsd). This allows it to scale to quite large networks, proving itself by providing services for Rizon Chat Network which has an average of around 20k users.

If I write a module for my network, do I need to release it to everyone?

We would love it if you could, or if you would even try to contribute back to the primary PyPsd repository so that everyone running the software can get the great new features!

However, it is not a requirement. Because PyPsd is licensed under the BSD 3-clause license, you have the flexibility to keep any changes to yourself if you want to.