Best I can gather, the flashpoint that triggered this series of events is a dispute over the control of the freenode domain name and DNS servers?
* freenode was run by elected volunteers.
* Lee stepped in to sponsor/fund the Freenode Live events
* Some assets were sold/transferred to Lee in the process of this
* Former staff admin leaves, new staff admin is elected
* New staff admin attempts to take control of assets they (reasonably) assume they should have control of
* Lee (reasonably) perceives this as control of assets being taken away from him - it's at this point we discover more about which assets were sold/transferred.
* Recent events driven by elected leadership discovering they're not actually leadership.
Essentially freenode has had a leadership vacuum for some time, and has been perfectly comfortable with that. But nature abhors a vacuum ..
You might note I have two groups marked as (reasonably) in opposite directions. As far as I can tell this is an information gap - what was sold/transferred was kept very, very quiet, so I do believe each side was behaving reasonably with the information available to them. So I believe what we're seeing this week, is what we would have seen during the actual sale, if these details were made remotely public at the time.
[2017-08-03 11:48:56.616000] <rasengan_> justJanne: I like the way you think about a lot of things and doubly appreciate the fact that you share these thoughts so that others can know and understand the realities of them as well. But, I do want to emphasize that while I am in fact listed on some piece of paper for a couple of IRC networks, I am not in control of any. That's not only a promise made, and my word means so much, but it's a reality: I don't have an O.
[Editor's note: O, or +O, means that the person is operator and has administrative control over the network]
[2017-08-03 11:48:56.789000] <rasengan_> Whenever something comes up I don't get involved or don't even know. (ps: plz excuse my space bar i think there is something wrong wiht my driver)
[2017-08-03 11:49:37.530000] <rasengan_> But the thing is IRC has alwasy been a glorious thing. The infra has always been sposnored by companies or people. But the great thing about IRC i s you can always vote and let the networks and world know which you choose - by using /server.
[Editor's note: /server is a command used to switch from one network to another]
[2017-08-04 21:48:37.553000] <rasengan_> I'm fully confident though if PIA were to show any kind of negative intentions, people would /quit fast.
[Editor's note: /quit is a command to disconnect from a network]
His statements that he had no control and would never have it were believed by staff all those years, but due to experience interacting with him I never did and have warned against this very scenario ever since the sale (which prompted above interaction).
Long story short, former staff were upset about a logo but the logos were there since the start. I wanted to share that.
Secondly, staff claim there was a hostile takeover. I have owned freenode for years and was a great custodian as far as I can tell (only compliments from former staff some of which even flew into defcon and came to my house on my dime, internationally) - I intervened when a hostile takeover from the inside began taking place - my dns was cut and the internal structure was changing to a non democratic one. All of this is detailed in the post and screenshots for proof since there’s been a lot of falsehoods spread.
I had to step in and did just in time.
I have noticed this pattern in many online communities which are controlled by one or small group of people, I think it's straight from the playbook.
Maybe you should consider incorporating it as a nonprofit and potentially a technology switch to Matrix? It would be nice to have a homeserver that people can rely on and isn't Matrix.org.
With IRC freenode has a control structure that can enforce their rules/guidelines, this breaks with matrix.
* If matrix.org went away tomorrow, is there enough capacity in the rest of matrix for users to migrate to.
* Federation only exists when a channel has users from multiple homeservers on it - how many small/medium channels only exist on matrix.org?
* People's identities are tied to their home server. You would be userfoo:matrix.org - if matrix.org went away, how would you find all your contacts again?
Points 1 and 2 would be addressed by more capacity and more independent homeservers, point 3 would require some sort of multi-homing.
2. Almost all public rooms seem to have users from other servers.
3. Account portability/multihoming is in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787
Please don't. I like Matrix, I use it, but it's not IRC, and it's far, far more resource heavy (both in homeserver and in clients) than IRC is. You can run IRC on ancient gutless wonders, and it uses almost no resources. Matrix, especially the flagship Element client, is a resource hog. Start throwing rooms with thousands of users in, and it requires an awful lot of resources.
Keep IRC IRC.
Matrix has problems, but as the ecosystem grows we'll start to see improvements.
The bigger question is if they retain enough server sponsors, who may be paying more attention. They might defect to libera.chat or OFTC, or just decide the whole business is not worth their while.
Synapse is fine until someone on the homeserver starts joining a bunch of rooms, then you'd better have a lot of RAM for it.
And Element, while a perfectly good client, is the standard "bloated electron app" option that chews 700MB of RAM and lags, entering text, on a Raspberry Pi 4.
There are alternatives, but they tend to have weird issues, at least last time I messed with them, in how they handle some of the corner cases of encryption.
Synapse is simply awful as a server implementation, and the clients are just simply bloated.
But if you are looking for a good federated, self hosted, and encrypted chat solution, for my own private chat system; I've gone back to XMPP - I've settled on:
* ejabberd (which is in Erlang so just by definition is going to perform leagues better than Python) - prosody also works fine (especially for "lower end" servers) - though both need a bit of configuration at first install
* conversations.im on my Android phone
* dino.im on my desktop (which recently added calling capabilities back to phones: https://fosstodon.org/@dino/106228549009869402 )
* (if you're on a Windows desktop): gajim.org is still making releases and works (including E2EE)
I do not know of a good iOS client for XMPP right now, but these three fully support OMEMO for E2EE and I've had no issues talking to others on them.
It's ok but it's really aiming at the whatsapp/telegram crowd. Open a few hundred channels and it's overwhelmed, especially visually. You can set the channels to a higher-density view but not the channel list itself. You're scrolling forever.
Unfortunately Matrix is very tightly coupled with Element, it's the only client that really implements everything.
I'd love something like Quassel (which is what I use for IRC now) for Matrix. Native app, excellent performance and features.
I'm not a huge fan of Matrix's current design or implementation, but I use it and I can understand why others do.
I don't know who's right or who's wrong. What I do know is that a LOT of volunteer IRC OPs left en masse for "reasons". I know a few of them, and am inclined to trust them. I'll talk with them after the dust settles.
I know how to read the room, even though I don't have all the information. I helped migrate the rooms I'm frequent in. So far, it's been pretty smooth over on Libera.
Technology has almost never been about the tech - it's about the people. Always has been.
https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=18926720&cid=61404...
Seem to indicate that the staff were unitedly and firmly against this. It's suspicious having the entire team against one person. I still don't get the whole picture but claims when made by an entire staff usually have merit.
How can you expect to gain any sympathy posting something that is phrased like that?
Despicable.
I'm the author at that blog. I was made aware of this thread in another medium and thought I'd chime in.
I completely get why it would be advantageous to try to discredit people who disagree with you on the internet, but it's not always the most fruitful approach.
Without rehashing old wounds by diving too far into specifics, this is a situation that has been brewing since at least 2008 when I was targeted for cyber-lynching after a very damaging encounter with someone later diagnosed with NPD and their resulting smear campaign and it's tangent offshoots.
I would encourage you to read about these types of campaigns, their dynamics, and how it affects people who are targeted by them. There are others who were targeted by the same people. In my case it was a revolving door for a bit as one campaign provides fuel for another and it kind of follows you for a bit. Someone sees a smear another made, and uses that to rehash it or make their own in a new context. Others not aware of what's going on (and sometimes they _are_ aware of what's going on) join in. Some do it because they think it's funny, some do it because their naivety is being exploited, or feel obligated to out of social ties to primary and secondary actors.
Those types of situations become messy and ambiguous as it unfolds; to the target it seems like it's coming from everywhere. Some of the staff at Freenode at one point or another became involved -- along with several members of other communities that maintain a presence on Freenode and are socially connected to many of the staff. While only some participated directly, there were others who engaged in victim-blaming, gaslighting, and generally enabled the abuse while punishing the target.
I did something a little different than most people who are targeted by these campaigns -- I found a way to fight back and I never stopped trying to have it addressed. I refused to see myself as a victim and I fought, and I fought hard, and I fought for a very long time. There was absolutely some "cloak and dagger" on my part, and over the years I've had to let alot of all of this go for my own sanity, but I still want to see justice for authority figures who not just allowed it, but facilitated it and in some cases participated in it. I don't want any of them in authority positions in /any/ community, particularly freenode.
For a while I didn't realize how some of the dynamics worked in these. The targets are baited to an extraordinary extent, and then what are normal reactions to being baited like that are then used to justify the initial baiting in an endless cycle. So, before I adapted to it I inadvertently fed into it a bit. I fed too much into it, and I did that too many times.
Some years ago, I eventually settled on a "sanctions-focused" adversarial model, and this allowed me to work out an agreement with Freenode and OFTC after I found a way to build something they really did not want me to build, called (humorously) "IRCThulu". A staffer approached me and worked out an agreement that worked for both networks that basically consisted of me being left alone to develop my projects of interest (hobby which later became career) with access to both networks and me not escalating the issue any further to sweep it under the rug.
I shouldn't have taken the compromise because I knew how these people would act when there was no visibility on them; when that staff member was recently fired they immediately took to trying to shut down all of my work and ability to engage again under false pretenses. Tom Wesley and Doug Freed at OFTC, Fuchs and Jess at Freenode participated directly in this and it was immediate. I initially thought this might be related to my participation in the counter-campaign to defend Richard Stallman. I currently believe it is more closely related to or compounded by a power struggle in the network where my story coming out would be problematic.
I don't think alot of people can do what I did; at the time I didn't have as many legal resources or funding necessary to fight something like that as I do now. By the time I did it was too late to pursue justice in a courtroom.
So, I used the tools I did have available.
In any case, yes, there is animus on my part towards these people. I believe that they deserve justice, and I believe that I am entitled to it as well -- and I see them leaving Freenode as the closest thing I can get to that. The exclusionist gatekeeper mentality that comes with their culture has been the most poisonous and unharmonious element of the F/OSS community since its inception. Not just in my case, but in most cases. I've found others who were in similar situations. Not all of them fared as well. I ended up in a pretty good spot, but there are others out there who need help and aren't getting it. There is one in particuarly that I am thinking of as I write this, and it pains me that I don't know how to help him. I tried to a little, but when I point out what's being done to him, people just find a way to shut it down. I can't help him yet because I don't know how.
I am genuine, and I believe this, so much so that I am willing to identify myself in a conversation with someone who is using an anonymous user on a posting board, which exposes me to further retaliation and smearing by not just yourself but any random person who thinks it's funny to stir up drama who will read this response or has a political interest or takes offense who was directly or indirectly involved and wants to reshape reality to their interests.
-C
I do believe you’re genuinely hurt, and quite possibly some of the staff have indeed wronged you. Yet the way your words were used by another who is not you, to publically defame people does you a disservice. Your reply to me has made it more than clear that you’re perfectly capable of explaining your position in a civil manner. Having that blog post online puts you in a bad light, however right you may be.
You’ve expressed your support of Richard Stallman which is basically supporting his right to be an a-hole and not to publically destroy his life. Now put your money where your mouth is and stand for those individuals’ right to be a-holes in your eyes and still have a life free of public personal humiliation.
All the best & No hard feelings, Scrutinizer.
Will you consider disclosing the terms under which you purchased freenode? PDFs of executed documents, ideally?
I really apologize for the inconvenience.
Confidentiality, NDA's, and other business tools like it are at complete odds with open source, free software, transparency, and honesty.
It's comments like this that cement the idea of getting off of Freenode to Libera.chat is the best thing we could do.
Throwing your toys out of the ring because business is business is why open source has a funding problem.
It makes sense that credentials to services are confidential. But aside that, the whole point behind a bulk of free software and open source is that everything's done out in the open. You get to watch the meat grinder - and you can even operate it as well! The head butcher may have exacting quality controls, but again - its viewable.
And yes, many of us have NDA's. I have a few myself, only on the specific implementations of systems I build and/or maintain, and internal business things. I reviewed it with an attorney, and believed their limited scope was acceptable and reasonable.
> Throwing your toys out of the ring because business is business is why open source has a funding problem.
There's a few assumptions there.
1. I helped *migrate* people away from (un)Freenode to Libera.chat . I didn't throw them away - i helped move people over for a mostly seamless experience.
2. That open source/free software has a funding problem... That's just a troll statement - you're assuming business needs are the same as FOSS. They're not. And unlike closed source proprietary, once FOSS code has been written, everyone can share. But you knew that; and that's why I call it a troll statement. It's disingenuous at its core.
I am not sure how lawyers can write these requirements without noticing how impossible they are. Then again I had to can a project that was signed of by the lawyers of at least three different companies, the software licenses involved made it impossible to build a commercial or open source project from it (GPL, AGPL and at least two conflicting commercial ones). So it might just be that they have as much understanding of technology as I have of Chinese.
I'm sure the other side would also be open to it
if both sides are happy there should be no problem whatsoever
this would completely settle the debate
But, I don't think it matters that much anymore. People just need to get the word out that the network has a new name.
whilst Andrew paid her (seemingly in exchange for ownership)
not a bad deal for her... if that's a correct assessment then it certainly looks like that could be considered to be fraud
Thanks for doing the work, and I kind of feel it unfair and totally unjust to you as a protector and supporter of the IRC network. It is free because of people like you and others.
IMHO, all that drama was staged, planned.
The reason why such networks have to be held under legal entities is funding number one, as to keep networks financed by sponsors, and protection number two. Legal entities are formed under country's laws and in case of trouble it is legitimate to use laws to protect assets. You have not done nothing wrong in doing so.
Keep doing well!
Mr Lee coming along and secretly giving christel a salary on the side would likely have had no effect on the operations of the IRC network had it not happened (bar maybe christel spending less time on IRC...)
In terms of the ownership, it was on the main blog and website for the past 4 years [1].
Also checkout http://techrights.org/2021/05/21/freenode-facts/
Thanks!
I don’t wish to be on irc 24/7 contrary to what people might or might not think.
I'm also a little confused. The PIA/Freenode announcement says "There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now." Why would you be involved operationally in any way with Freenode's administration? What would any reorganization have mattered to you? Wasn't the point of the structure you claim you had that Freenode's operators had self-determination?
These are still more instances of this PDF you've produced not really clarifying your position here.
"announcing a new ircd and a partnership with OFTC" ? Dude. Solanum is an evolution of Seven, which needed to evolve; based on Charybdis. It's not _new_, it's just an _evolution_, and one that is badly needed (to support ircv3 features and much more).
OFTC is also working on that IRCd. This is not a mad partnership either. Two networks joining forces to develop and improve a proven IRC platform (Charybdis/Atheme) is not something insane at all.
Like, yeah, Tom was maneuovered into place to take control of the DNS account, because thats what a head of staff does. Do you think that each new US president shouldn't get the nuclear codes either?
Here's a log; search for "kevinp":
https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a...
This is all super weird.
The internal reorganization and structure seems a sensible thing to do (as an outsider it even looks like an improvement) and was agreed by all the staff. You weren't supposed to interfere so why a new structure and reorg would affect you ?
You also seemed to be annoyed by them improving the current IRCd. Why that would matter to you ?
then why acquire freenode?
Your claim of ownership over Freenode isn't news; it's one detail that both sides of this controversy seem ready to agree on: someone named christel somehow sold you an IRC network 5 years ago, unbeknownst (until recently) to the people operating the IRC network on their own servers.
What is the PDF meant to clarify beyond that?
This is false [1]. The PDF clarifies a great many of the unanswered questions and verified that despite former staff attempt to say I was lying, all I did was spoke the truth and helped when asked.
Please review the PDF.
Lastly, I also run servers on freenode and have for years preceding the acquisition.
The PDF puts to rest all the falsehoods and uncertainties in my opinion but please let me know if there is something I missed!
1. Rob Levin/Lilo, personally
2. Open Projects Network
3. ???
4. PDPC
5. Christel, personally
6. freenode ltd.
7. Andrew Lee (via freenode ltd)
After PDPC, what christel personally owned to transfer to freenode ltd to sell to Andrew Lee is... hard to define. A domain and a website, sure. But christel didn't own the servers, did not employ people, and does not have any agreement with the users, something which continued into freenode ltd. And apart from the users, operators, servers, and domain, it's not clear what an IRC network is to own.
In my estimation, the biggest potential problem for Freenode policy that I see is based on the the statements by some departing staffers that indicate the parent company may collect and monetize user data. That would be a pretty shitty outcome. I asked a current (post-split) Freenode staffer about improving privacy measures on the network, and got very encouraging responses, though. Of course, a single staffer is not exactly an ironclad indication of policy. Perhaps the only way to really know how it'll hash out is to wait and see. I plan to keep an eye on the Freenode privacy policy.
The announcement you link to here is itself clear as mud and has been quoted by your opponents. It says Freenode and PIA are "joining forces", "in the same family", but "continue to operate as a not-for-profit entity with the same management". That could mean anything. In particular, the first sentence after the subhed "what's next" reads "There will be few noticeable changes in terms of day-to-day operations, the freenode project will continue to operate with much the same structure and volunteer base as it does now."
And it absolutely did until it didn’t (as per the meeting agenda notes) as you can see.
Thanks for helping to make that part clear.
I was able to follow it pretty easily. What did you have trouble with?
* Its central claim, that PIA or Lee or whoever directed a bunch of money to Freenode or people involved with freenode, isn't contested by anyone. There's no record to set straight there.
* It spends the bulk of its time talking about a problem Lee seems to have with Thomas Welsey ("tomaw", I think?) --- but the logs with "tomaw" seem relatively civil? It's not really even clear what the problem here is.
* The public announcement from Christel and the IRC logs make it pretty clear that the Freenode operator community believed Lee was to have no operational role managing Freenode. What seems to have upset Lee here is a reorganization of Freenode's operational management, and something about who has the login for Freenode's DNS. Why does this matter? It seems to be obvious to Lee why this is problematic, but it's not at all obvious to me.
Subtextually: there's the additional problem of "what the hell does it mean to own an IRC network?" Neither Lee nor his company appear to run all the Freenode servers. Those servers are the actual IRC network. It's not that IRC's nature makes it impossible to own a network, but rather just that whatever it is Lee means by "owning" it, the onus is on him to explain it.
This PDF would be better if it stated clearly up top what the problem was, what the competing claim was, and why Lee's claim is right. Then, all these random chat logs should just be supporting appendices.
I'm not saying Lee is wrong about any of this. I'm saying that I do not understand what he is claiming in the first place.
There's "freenode" -- the network, the volunteers, and there's 'Freenode Limited' the company, which owns the Freenode domain and trademark. The latter were being held by christel, and she seemed to have sneakily sold them to Lee because she needed money (she seems to have lied to the rest of team about the details of transfer, the rest of the team only learned later about all that was handed over to Lee when lawyers got involved). By virtue of controlling the domain and having access to the website, Lee seems to have put ads on the site... this rubbed some folks the wrong way. They all had a foreboding feeling of things to come and tried to get the domain firmly under their control... to which Lee resisted. Lee does own the domain, he paid for it fair and square after all, so he's got that going for him...
But at this point that's the only thing he's got going for him.... because Freenode is an IRC network with community roots that wants to remain community-oriented and away from commercialization and pesky shell ads, so Freenode is no longer what it used to be, Libera is, and Lee is now left holding a dud.
Because many of the things presented by Andrew Lee (rasengan) seem to be distortions and half-truths, the statement above deserves some scrutiny.
Andrew Lee claims to have donated an amount greater than 1 million (assuming US dollars) to Freenode.
As far as I can tell, this was not to Freenode the IRC network, it was for the FreeNode Live conferences. This conference took place in 2017 and 2018, and had approximately 250 attendees in 2017 and 150-200 attendees in 2018.
The relevant parts as far as I can tell:
• the exact amount donated (1 million) has only been mentioned by Andrew Lee, and has not been verified by anyone else
• the amount donated is only for the two FreeNode Live conferences
• the FreeNode Live conferences seemingly have nothing to do with the freenode IRC network
• none of the money was every given to the people who donate the servers that run the freenode IRC network, or the operators that volunteer their time to run it
A lot of people seems to conflate the two. Andrew Lee's comments seem to encourage that ambiguity (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27236734), presumably because it seems to legitimize his hostile takeover of freenode IRC.
His contribution to the Freenode Live conferences (whatever monetary amount that was) should not entitle him to freenode IRC, he has not given a penny towards that.
If not, why?
Not saying this is the reality, but it doesn't seem far-fetched given the IRC drama I've seen in the past. Certainly not any more far-fetched than the "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years) angle.
This is a thing that is confusing, because I've seen some claims that there are in fact two entities operating under the name "freenode": the IRC network itself, which is a federated collective owned by nobody, and Freenode Ltd, a company that basically just exists to register the domains and hold the trademarks, which passed from Chris to Lee in 2017.
It sounds like in March, Tom, the new head of staff for the IRC network, wanted to get more control over the limited company, and at the same time Lee, the owner of the limited company, wanted to get more control over the network.
I have no association with freenode or any major IRC channels, unless you count the GT Linux Users' Group (which is exactly what it sounds like).
There was at least one significant dispute. Something about a DNS change that would cause many people to leave. What exactly was that?
Also, that Christel person or whatever their name, the fact that they apparently were kind of desperate for money at some point and so supposedly sold you something seems like you were taking advantage of them and the situation rather than getting involved from the goodness of your heart.
How can you own something like Freenode which is a completely volunteer effort that doesn't make money?
And what would be the point of "buying" it if you were not trying to monetize it? And if you were then how would that be in the spirit of "Free"node?
How is it "just in time" if the majority of the projects already left?
Did you read the PDF with the screenshots?
Why is it so important for the Freenode community that you own the domain? Because as far as I can tell, the Freenode community moved to Libera.chat and made a much nicer website that doesn't have an ad on it for some kind of unrelated VM service prominently featured on the home page. And they have moved the chat rooms also.
That sounds like a specific change was requested which was controversial.
You were approached by christel.
Because that's what I heard.
Lol.
https://github.com/freenode/web-7.0/pull/489
"since the start."
In fact, thinking about it I seem to remember some discussion of the fact that the PIA logo had been added at the time and that it was something to do with their funding of Freenode Live, and that no-one much seemed to care back then aside from a few trolls of the sort Freenode has always attracted under all its owners.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160413123025/https://freenode....
And that's how we ended up here.
It was ran by the very staff that all left. No exceptions, all of them. So who exactly where they taking it away from?
The appointed heads were appointed by all of staff, democratically, as your very PDF proves from the meeting notes. It is you who tried to force in people in a leading position that staff were disagreeing with, so if there was a hostile takeover, it was yours.
You also never owned freenode, you owned Freenode Limited. You had zero involvement with the network, that was ran by volunteers in their spare time.
Also you have not been locked out from DNS either. One of your employees insisted on enabling 2FA, and you simply haven't had a key. For ages, mind, not just for the past few weeks.
But sure, blame your mismanagement of your own company on volunteers that had nothing to do with you or your ltd.
I speculate that one of the causes of this confusion (which is eerily familiar, from countless other disputes in community projects) is that people involved in community project disputes tend not enlist professional communicators to represent their perspective, and the disputes don't tend to be covered by investigative journalists. And outsiders just aren't interested to unravel it. Many individuals invest much of their lives into community projects, sometimes with little else left, and aren't prepared for suddenly being subject to the court of public opinion. And the public generally isn't invested enough in the matter, to work long to understand it.
Anyway, it sounds unfortunate that Freenode appears to be going through a rough time, and I hope good comes out of this period of its history.
FWIW, before Freenode started, lilo was on other networks, and I recall him asking how to create a nonprofit organization, which I assumed that was what became Freenode. I think the intent was to have a legal structure that would permit an IRC network to sustainably represent particular community interests.
Libera.Chat does have a non-profit, however, according to the announcement.
A thought occurs -- this is probably the last big IRC network drama
Interesting doesn't imply good