Freenode Exodus: A List | Hacker News Reader

Freenode Exodus: A List

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87 pointszatertip25 comments

Repo author here. I initially compiled this list as a gist because I saw several informal collections being shared in comments and over IRC, but did not cite their original sources and represented only a fraction of the move at large. Over time the informal list grew and it became necessary to add citations. Please feel free to open issues or PRs.

Recent and related:

Freenode ops take control of 700 channels - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27286628 - May 2021 (942 comments)

Freenode Exists for FOSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27283964 - May 2021 (22 comments)

Welcome to Libera Chat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27207734 - May 2021 (526 comments)

Leaving Freenode for a new network - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27207440 - May 2021 (296 comments)

Freenode resignation is official, not a draft - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27205926 - May 2021 (16 comments)

The Freenode resignation FAQ, or: “what the fuck is going on?” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27169301 - May 2021 (8 comments)

I am resigning along with most other Freenode staff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27153338 - May 2021 (269 comments)

A daily growing list of currently 451 public projects that have left Freenode for other networks following the takeover by Andrew Lee and subsequent takeover of many channels by his organisation. Some projects had 100 channels, others only one.

Thanks for explanation, I knew I'm missing context here.

Wow that is quite the list of channels leaving. Made me wonder what the user impact was. Thankfully netsplit.de is still around.

Graph comparing the top networks. You can clearly see the drop here: https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php

Freenode stats: https://netsplit.de/networks/statistics.php?net=freenode

Libera.Chat stats: https://netsplit.de/networks/statistics.php?net=Libera.Chat

OFTC stats: https://netsplit.de/networks/statistics.php?net=OFTC

This site was recently created and monitors the user and channel count for Freenode, OFTC, and Libera.

https://isfreenodedeadyet.com/

It seems that Libera Chat is currently the second largest IRC network by user count.

Don't take Netsplit's top 10 into a real "top 10", some networks are excluded from it (including freenode). However, Libera is higher than IRCNet in user count now (the top 10 isn't refreshed regularly). So technically it _is_ first in this top, and ultimately, number 2 behind freenode.

> some networks are excluded from it (including freenode).

Uh... no it's not? The graphs at https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php explicitly mention Freenode.

Uh my bad. It's on the top 100 (which is a list and not graph), and I was sure you talked about that top.

OK, I see now. It's somewhat confusing that they have their statistics grouped like that.

Anyone notable that decided to stay?

Some channels I was in on Freenode were hesitant to move, but they were then taken over by Freenode staff in the wave of channel hijackings (for example, because they had topics like "We're discussing whether to move to Libera, please <bla>") which expedited the move for all of them.

That was such a shockingly stupid move by the new Freenode admins.

There are three projects at the end of the list.

With #freenode themselves being one of them.

Scroll to the very bottom, there's a couple.

Well, one and a half; I don't think #freenode counts (for obvious reasons) and #forth is bridged into #forth at libera.chat. The only channel left on that list of three is #techrights which I'm not personally familiar with.

Regarding #techrights, reading some of the comments from http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-social-290521.htm... aimed at libera.chat gives me the real creeps. They seem to come from a person and/or people who have a black-and-white vision of some aspects of the world to the point of sheer fanaticism. It's scary.

Some "mentionworthy" quotes:

> Libera chat: yeah, let's just show how "liber" we are by outsourcing our 1) site code 2) site hosting 3) projects to a bunch of criminals who badmouth and bribe to undermine #freesw

> The free in #freenode stands for freedom. The Liber in Libera Chat stands for (neo) liberal.

> Libera chat is all #microsoft (technially), except the IRC daemons.

> Libre chat: we don't know how to set up and manage a git server (funny that, even I can do that... with little experience) but trust us to run a whole IRC network...

> All you mindless fanatics who flock over to libera.chat (185.199.110.153), be aware that they have outsourced to #microsoft #proprietarySoftware #monopoly ( cdn-185-199-110-153.github.com ). So they don't exactly value freedom or "libera"... it's just shallow rhetoric. Because it's an ego think against #freenode

If that's one of the main channels performing Freenode support, I'm getting convinced that I made a good move by jumping off Freenode.

Some of that is moderately disturbing but I think if there's anything we can learn from this episode it's that the company running the network barely matters provided they're not just kicking everyone for some reason.

Agreed. The main role of the network, as with any service provider, is being transparent to the functioning of the communities that use that service. Disturbances in the service's functioning are the main things that break that transparency, and calling the hurricane that turned Freenode into Leenode a "disturbance" is greatly understating the impact that it had.

>The Liber in Libera Chat stands for (neo) liberal.

oh wow

To be fair, it will always be easier to find news about something that did happen than about something that didn't :-)

A lot of people are showing up to android-dev confused, because the topic can't tell them where to go and they have no idea anything even happened.

TLDR; all relevant channels left Freenode in favor of Libera and some OFTC.

Seems to me that Lee did a great job.

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