We added SSL support in the cvs, so anybody interested can try it out. You can get a snapshot from ftp://ftp.eggheads.org/pub/eggdrop/sour ... hot.tar.gz
While 1.8 is in active development, it's fairly usable and I encourage users who need SSL to try it instead of 1.6.20 + the unofficial ssl patch. This will help us improve it and fix any bugs it may have. The snapshot currently has to offer IPv6 and SSL support with some other minor changes from 1.6.20 which you can find in the doc/Changes1.8 document.
To compile 1.8 with SSL support, you need OpenSSL 0.9.8 or higher. Make sure you have the openssl headers installed as well. They are often packaged separately as openssl-dev. For installation and usage information, refer to doc/TLS.
The tls patch is huge and complex, and we don't guarantee it's stable or complete, but in all cases we'd like to hear about any problems you have with it. Submit bug reports and feature requests on our Trac, on the mailing lists or even here in the forum.
Note: since modules for 1.6.x aren't compatible with 1.8.x due to specific version checks, you can find some popular modules updated for 1.8 by me here