On February 9, the latest release of the HexChat IRC client was released. HexChat is a fork of the once popular XChat and until recently was developed by a single developer. Version 2.16.2 includes minor changes that have accumulated over the past two years.
Reasons for discontinuation include lack of community activity, outdated code, problems with migration from GTK2 to newer versions, and the generally deteriorating state of IRC as a messaging medium. At the same time, the developer stated the hope that someone will create a fork and continue the development of the project.
Source: linux.org.ru