This seems similar to the group of people that want to improve the DCC protocol (creatively named
DCC2) where various client developers joined. I haven't heard much about its development since it was announced though, but I don't believe it's been discontinued. I guess this is also comparable to the MTS project, although obviously that is solely for mIRC and is a creation of a protocol rather than a sudden new development of a currently widely used one.
If it does eventually work for that I see little reason why it couldn't work for the IRC protocol. *Shrugs*
Regards,
