Freenode and Fosshost Partner to Empower FOSS
freenode.net
freenode.net
3d ago: FOSSHOST continues to announce financial dire straits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27329890
Today: FOSSHOST announces partnership with freenode Ltd, taking "no strings" donations in return for shouldering freenode's hosting costs. https://fosshost.org/news/freenode ( https://archive.is/AON8V )
After a disasterous attempt to buy his way into free software by strongarming freenode's former staff out of the picture, Andrew Lee is carrying out an incredibly blatant attempt to launder his public image, and engage in shell games with his money to pretend that freenode continues to prosper under "honest" community support.
Andrew has approached a financially vulnerable organisation with an as-yet untarnished reputation, and has redirected his funding of freenode through a recently incorporated holding company, "donating" to them, and then FOSSHOST paying the money directly back out to maintain freenode's infrastructure.
I could almost believe this was an honest attempt, other than for the kickbacks: FOSSHOST staff are considering[1] skimming the donations for their own gain, and have also received staff privileges on the IRC network, something never before offered to any hardware sponsor in return for their support.
freenode truly is dead, seizing 700 channels from foss projects thinking about or exercising their right to move their community elsewhere. However you frame it, a hostile removal of channels with zero notice is not supportive of the foss projects Andrew claims to love. These are the true colours: that free software projects should suffer that Andrew's investment, freenode, might not bleed users quite so fast, by disrupting their self governance.
The abuse of a company about to go bust, offering them a way out if they only allow themselves to be a puppet org to spend his money how he would like, without his name being attached, and them make them complicit with the option to skim the donations and receive on-IRC benefits is disgusting.
[1]: https://fosshost.org/news/freenode-faq ( https://archive.is/QPkRJ )
""" You say you are volunteers, but now you have all this money. Are you keeping some? Bonuses?
We're thinking about it. """
Bonuses for the lads off the back of a major donation deal isn't colo costs or sustainable staff hiring. I have no problem with either of those.
I would be interested in what assurances, governance-wise, legally-speaking, and technically-speaking, FOSSHost can give that Andrew Lee, having donated now to this next open-source-focused organization, will, and can, exercise absolutely no functional control over it, ever.