[HN Gopher] The whole freenode kerfluffle
___________________________________________________________________
The whole freenode kerfluffle
Author : gbrown_
Score : 146 points
Date : 2021-05-20 08:52 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ariadne.space)
(TXT) w3m dump (ariadne.space)
| cookguyruffles wrote:
| Speaking as an IRC lifer, every article I read about this fails
| to actually make any kind of cohesive point about what's going on
| and why it is bad. Explain like I'm 5 please?
|
| Who controlled nickserv/chanserv before this Andrew fellow? It
| seems there is some leap to "omfg he's taking control of
| services!" without mention of who is /losing/ control. It seems
| perhaps a large chunk of story is missing here.
|
| Meanwhile I'll probably continue using Freenode until it starts
| serving Viagra ads during connection or something similarly
| tangibly evil. Right now I just see a bunch of dumb IRC drama.
| It's a chat network, come on.
| pmlnr wrote:
| IRC == drama since the dawn of time.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Absolutely this brings back memories of the channel takeover
| battles that used to happen on EFNet back in the days before
| nickserv and chanserv, or for that matter freenode.net but
| that was kind of the EFNet culture and the actual ops rarely
| got involved with individual channels and communities
| struggles unless it affected the overall network stability.
|
| Freenode was however supposed be run by adults and relatively
| drama free, i dont know really i kind of drifted away from
| IRC around the time freenode.net was formed.
| kazinator wrote:
| I remember being kicked off #unix in Efnet sometime in 200x
| because I posted the controversial idea that work on IRC
| began in 1988 and I first compiled a client and got on in
| 1993.
| CapriciousCptl wrote:
| Isn't it crazy how you remember getting kicked/banned 20
| years later? Around the same time (early 200x) I was temp-
| banned from #cpp or #c++ or whatever after being accused of
| asking a homework question. I had been active in the
| channel for awhile by then and simply didn't have homework
| because I was self-learning with everything I could find.
|
| It just stuck with me because I idolized the people in that
| room at the time.
| cout wrote:
| Sounds like something we might have done in #c.
| Eventually I learned how to act like an adult, some time
| after I became one.
| kazinator wrote:
| It's not crazy if it was for a totally laughable reason,
| like puffed up pricks in #unix with channel ops don't
| even know IRC history.
| ok123456 wrote:
| /mode #unix +k NOHELP
| andrew_ wrote:
| Who else recalls the self-flagellation that was required in
| order to get any kind of help in #cplusplus or #programming?
| Took a lot of humility and you had to eat a lot of crow back
| in those days. ah, seeking help on EFNet - the old rite of
| passage for young programmers.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Yeah I'd only briefly hang out in the bigger programming
| channels because of the toxicity. When I was on IRC I would
| usually stick with a tight-knit group of friends in a
| private channel. Once IRC started waning, my friends and I
| left.
| kodah wrote:
| I think I might be able to do this.
|
| Prior to recent times there was a Freenode head of staff that
| was elected named Christel. Powers seem to have been delegated
| from her as she had control of the legal entity.
|
| In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and
| terms. Supposedly this was to launch a conference called
| Freenode Live (why Freenode wanted a conference is beyond me.)
| It was stipulated that Freenode staff would be able to maintain
| strategic control of the network. At some point Mr Lee of PIA
| requested that the domains be transferred back under his
| control and some ads for shells.com popped up on the Freenode
| website. Between there and now is a mystery.
|
| Freenode isn't really _just_ FOSS, believe it or not. It 's a
| lot of hobbyists, tinkerers, etc... The vast majority of users
| you meet on there aren't data scientists or software engineers.
| The culture is this very independent, almost Libertarian-esque
| ideals. My take is that Mr Lee came in and reminded them the
| buck stops with him and no longer honored Freenodes more
| democratic culture of voting.
|
| It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state because
| the original owner died and his brother tried to monetize the
| network. There's precedent in the idea that people (staff and
| users) do not want a for-profit network. It's viewed as a
| conflict of interest and a consolidation of power where power
| is "meant" to be distributed and already quite scarce. These
| users will often avoid Slack and object to open communities
| being run on proprietary for-profit platforms. The reason
| people don't get it, in my view, is a difference in cultural
| values that are fairly unique to certain areas of FOSS and
| Freenode, LiberaChat, and OFTC.
|
| Basically you had an official system of authority enforced by
| legal means and one implicit system of authority which users
| were familiar with that ran the day to day operations of the
| network. Those came to a head, and the network operators put
| the problem on the users because they didn't know how to deal
| with it.
| mulmen wrote:
| What legal and organizational constructs can help maintain
| the original intent of a project even after the passing of
| the creator?
|
| A foundation wholly owned by a public benefit company?
|
| I don't expect or even want Freenode to "innovate" or develop
| new lines of business. I just want them to run the network. I
| am reluctant to contribute to such an organization because I
| fear their success.
| kodah wrote:
| Agreed. I think this is the attitude of much of the
| community. I was trying to wrap those points in objectivity
| and a way outsiders can understand.
| wott wrote:
| > It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state
| because the original owner died
|
| Didn't this original owner also have a very er... "personal"
| way of managing funds?
| dpedu wrote:
| > In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and
| terms.
|
| Sold by who? Christel alone? The brother-of-original-owner?
| What exactly was sold? The name? Server data?
| kodah wrote:
| I don't know the specifics, but from what I gathered it was
| the IP, trademarks, and infrastructure. Basically the whole
| thing.
| speeder wrote:
| There is a contract where seemly Christel sold everything,
| even stuff that was not hers to start with, to PIA.
|
| That contract was hidden until recently, and seemly some of
| the staffers had to pay lawyers with money of their own
| pocket to figure out what is going on.
|
| What made people realize how bad it was, is when the
| "owner" started to demand passwords for control of the
| servers, including ones that are not directly controlled by
| freenode, saying he has legal right to demand that.
| gwillen wrote:
| My sense has been that the things we need to know are mostly
| pretty clear. There are things we don't know, but it seems that
| Andrew Lee is the _reason_ (or a reason) that we don't know
| many of those things.
|
| - Who controlled nickserv/chanserv? I'm not sure, but my
| impression is that it was probably christel (who was head of
| Freenode staff) until she resigned, then tomaw (who became head
| of Freenode staff at that time), until he was served with
| threatening legal papers ordering him to deliver them to Andrew
| Lee.
| ok123456 wrote:
| There is no real problem.
|
| The freenode "staffers" just don't like the fact that someone
| was able to win the irc game (i.e., gaining more power) without
| following their invented arbitrary bureaucracy and dedicating
| their life to idling in the right set of channels.
|
| This whole thing is really off topic and should be taken to
| ##wrongplanet .
| mjthompson wrote:
| I know you'll get downvoted but the last line did make me
| laugh.
|
| Edit: delete some things I'm probably not qualified to
| comment on
| q3k wrote:
| > It does strike me as odd that people who run servers
| don't get o-lines, but a random group of people do?
|
| IIUC it's the staffers/opers that actually run the servers
| - monitor health, manage the OS, perform software updates,
| manage ircd, debug issues, cordon broken machines, etc.
| That's the bulk of the work in order to keep the things
| actually running. The alternative, providing a server in
| exchange for powers on the network would clearly be an
| exchange, not a donation.
|
| Plus, I'm pretty sure many machine donors don't want the
| extra work of maintaining the entire IRC/software stack,
| and are quite happy to exchange some spare organizational
| resources to a good cause. I know I would much rather
| donate spare rack capacity than to also spend hours
| maintaining yet another service.
| mjthompson wrote:
| I edited my comment after posting it to get rid of some
| of the commentary, since on reflection, I really don't
| know enough about them to offer an opinion. But thanks
| for clarifying that.
|
| Are these staffers appointed by the community or by other
| staffers? I would have expected it to be a democratic
| process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist vibe that
| ok alludes to.
| q3k wrote:
| > Are these staffers appointed by the community or by
| other staffers? I would have expected it to be a
| democratic process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist
| vibe that ok alludes to.
|
| I don't know, but I honestly don't care that much about
| it. My limited contact with staffers was excellent, they
| were helpful and never came off as arrogant (even when
| people did stupid shit), so effectively I couldn't care
| less about whether they were democratically elected or
| not.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Every organization in which the people have real autonomy and
| power is literally an invented arbitrary bureaucracy. You
| just invented a really long way to describe civilization.
|
| People don't like it when money trumps all other factors in a
| concern that perceptively wasn't for sale and threats and
| dishonesty don't help either.
|
| It appears that nearly everyone involved believes there is a
| problem including Lee who now needs new paid staff to run
| what is likely a dwindling community. It sounds like you have
| an ax to grind personally.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Nah. I've seen much larger IRC networks run with a fraction
| of the officiousness and ornery behavior from freenode
| "staffers".
|
| It's not a general problem with civilization needing "law
| and order" or whatever.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Do you mean that you had an issue with freenode staff and
| now enjoy their discomfort.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Personal attacks are off-topic on hackernews.
| Macha wrote:
| Isn't Freenode the largest IRC network by a significant
| margin?
|
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
| pop11 wrote:
| Click 2005. Observe Y axis.
| Macha wrote:
| I'm not sure early 00s IRC networks are a success story
| of light touch, politics free organisation.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Those same networks are still functioning with much less
| proportionate overhead.
|
| They're also much more technically competent. Look at how
| the different networks handled the cross-protocol exploit
| a few years back where a well crafted link could cause
| the browser to connect to irc and spam. Most other
| networks required a PING/PONG on connect so they weren't
| vulnerable. Of the networks that didn't, they were able
| to mitigate that within minutes to hours by either a
| simple configuration change or a firewall rule. Freenode
| was unable to do anything for months. Their solution was
| to rewrite their entire ircd and tell people not to
| complain about the spam.
| grouphugs wrote:
| the server getting invaded by nazis that gaslight, stalk,
| harass, pull red herrings, all in campaigns of attrition, and
| behavior that freenode itself as an organization is upholding,
| is drama? that's very itneresting cookguyruffles, we will be
| keeping tabs on you
| kemonocode wrote:
| I hope this entire ordeal makes it all clear that when a company
| snatches up a community project, it'll be very likely with the
| intention to monetize it down the road, and I really think the
| changes being vaguely alluded to were oriented towards that.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Bribes of oper and money? Aka offering someone a job as a staff
| member? Am I understanding that correctly?
| inshadows wrote:
| Whoa! There are now money in IRC?
| blibble wrote:
| if he's truthful in saying he funded freenode with more than
| a million dollars... seems like it
|
| I wonder where that money went, especially considering the
| hosting for all the IRC servers is donated by its sponsors
| (ISPs)
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| The ex-Freenode staff seem to be saying there is. I am also
| confused.
| q3k wrote:
| Offering a job position can be bribery. It's not a stretch to
| interpret that particular chat log as exactly that.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Bribery for what? What would they be getting other than
| someone to do staffer work for them?
| q3k wrote:
| Influence over the community's perception that freenode is
| still freenode, and that things are stable, because some
| staff is still on their side, and because an influential
| project (Alpine) stayed with freenode.
| speeder wrote:
| I read the log.
|
| That Shane person, literally told Ariadne she would have power
| to ban whoever she wants, screw with people she doesn't like,
| punish her enemies...
|
| She replied she have no enemies, he tried to point out that is
| still a good power to have and whatnot.
|
| She then explained to him that banning someone from Freenode
| can damage that person career if they are involved in FOSS
| community, considering how many important projects communicate
| only there and all.
|
| Later in the conversaion I saw something I interpreted as a
| kind-of threat too, when in a passing remark Shane mentioned
| her sexual fetishes.
|
| Then he implied that certain Linux distros have advantages in
| Freenode, and Alpine could have it too...
|
| I think you get the point, it is not just a job offer, the way
| he was writing looked like more someone trying to imitate
| characters in the Godfather movie.
| toyg wrote:
| It largely read like a hamfisted attempted at persuasion, I'm
| honestly not as scandalised as Ariadne seemed to be. This is
| par for the course in any political setting: help me and I'll
| help you.
|
| The foul smell simply comes from the way that guy Shane
| communicates - the short sentences, the somewhat-juvenile
| form, it feels like you're talking with an excited and
| vaguely sinister teenage salesman. I think he misjudged the
| type of person he was talking to, Ariadne clearly is not the
| stereotypical IRC kid.
| speeder wrote:
| Shane is not a teenager, neither Ariadne, Freenode is not a
| kiddie thing, Freenode founder was already adult when he
| founded it, they had a 503 setup in the US with all the
| bureaucracy, had to move to UK for legal reasons, had
| visits from the FBI (it is mentioned in one of the logs).
|
| Offering tools to ban your enemies, while you know the
| network even had FBI involved in it, doesn't sound to me
| like childish behaviour.
| toyg wrote:
| I never said he was a teenager, I said he came off as
| one.
| enriquto wrote:
| So freenode has suffered a hostile take over by the korean
| imperial family. No shit! _On vit une epoque formidable_.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Well, no, not the Korean imperial family. There is, obviously,
| no Korean imperial family anymore. Lee is a pretender.
| enriquto wrote:
| all monarchs are illegitimate pretenders if you think about
| it.
| kwk1 wrote:
| The word pretender ("to reach/stretch out") in this context
| simply means a claimant for a position that is occupied or
| gone. It has nothing to do with the modern connotation of
| someone making something up.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I was a PIA customer precisely because I knew they donated to
| freenode (among other things; ie: financial sponsorship for
| WireGuard).
|
| Doesn't seem to me like staff are fully aware of what they're
| destroying and how there will never be another real dominant IRC
| network. Freenode was it. Slack and discord have killed IRC for a
| lot of things already, and this is now the final nail in the
| coffin. "Libra"-whatever will not last long, and neither will
| freenode without staff.
|
| Is all of this worth it? Did he really do anything that bad?
| Hasn't a few years of financial donation to various open source
| projects bought any good will? Isn't there a reasonable
| explanation for trying to put some of these things in LLCs and
| formal organizations, etc.? Someone has to own the domain, right?
|
| It doesn't sound to me like he was asking for a lot of effort.
|
| Anyway, too late to cry about it, it's done and over with now.
| RIP to IRC. I guess I'll see you guys on Discord! I love the
| modern internet!!!
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| > Hasn't a few years of financial donation to various open
| source projects bought any good will?
|
| Good will, sure, but the work of volunteer staff? Why would it?
| chalst wrote:
| If you're going to move from IRC, give Zulip a look.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27149123
| syoc wrote:
| I like zulip a lot, but is it really comparable? IRC is built
| as a simple open protocol and the clients are tuned towards
| being able to join multiple servers at once. This is a hard
| requirement for mass adaptation in for example FOSS
| communities IMO. There is no way that people will bother
| logging into the zulip or mattermost instances for the 5-15
| different FOSS projects they are interested in.
|
| This means either a centralized solution like Discord or
| something like Matrix which is 100x more complex than IRC.
| chalst wrote:
| I can well imagine Zulip failing for FOSS for as stupid a
| reason as users finding juggling user accounts tiresome,
| but the Zulip codebase offers servers plenty of flexibility
| in authentication options.
|
| https://fmcthanos.zulip.com/help/configure-authentication-
| me...
| mlatu wrote:
| > Someone has to own the domain, right?
|
| Why not an association then? Why must it always be someONE who
| owns something? Communal property is the way forwards, not
| setting up fences.
| jlokier wrote:
| It _is_ already owned by an association, a non-profit called
| Freenode Limited.
| jlokier wrote:
| Nice downvote for looking up a simple legal fact, to
| address the misleading impression from the GP that an
| individual person holds the domain.
|
| Perhaps this will be downvoted as well because the
| childishness is strong on this issue, but for the benefit
| of anyone who cares, the parent comment is at least
| technically correct (the best kind of correct).
|
| The domain at the centre of this controversy is owned by an
| incorporated non-profit association registered as a company
| limited by guarantee, not by a "someone".
| rcxdude wrote:
| Apparently neither Andrew Lee or the freenode staff have any
| idea what happened to the money he apparently donated to
| freenode (the company has not filed its accounts as required
| and is in danger of being dissolved, which is legally Lee's
| responsibility but he seems to think the volunteer staffers who
| claim no knowledge of donated funds are responsible for it).
| Freenode mostly operates off of donated infrastructure and
| volunteer efforts, the expenses they have are basically
| minimal.
| RIMR wrote:
| This doesn't kill IRC. The name isn't important. It's just a
| brand.
|
| If the Freenode volunteers and users move to Libera Chat, then
| Libera Chat becomes the new Freenode.
|
| Oracle didn't kill Continuous Integration when they bought and
| destroyed the Hudson project. All the volunteers moved to the
| forked Jenkins project, the users followed. Jenkins is now the
| new Hudson.
|
| Like Oracle, Andrew and Co. will end up holding the bag on a
| dead brand as the project moves elsewhere.
| rocqua wrote:
| Point made was that there are succesful competing
| alternatives in slack and discord. Hence any damage to
| existing IRC communities is likely to see some users move
| towards IRC competitors, rather than another IRC server.
| HajiraSifre wrote:
| > This doesn't kill IRC. The name isn't important. It's just
| a brand.
|
| Sure, but it will still negatively affect the number of
| users.
|
| For example, I'm already aware of one community that decided
| to end their IRC presence altogether (and only keep their
| discord) rather than migrate their freenode channel to
| another network.
|
| There will undoubtedly also be a number of individuals who
| decide to just quit IRC instead of moving.
| myself248 wrote:
| And I've heard of Jenkins, I've never heard of Hudson. So
| that's something. How long was Hudson dominant for?
|
| Freenode has been the go-to name for IRC (in FOSS circles)
| for two decades plus. There's also OFTC which I don't know
| the whole story of, and there are some projects making their
| home on Efnet and elsewhere too, but the majority of
| everything has been on Freenode. To the point that I don't
| even /list anymore, I just blindly /join #name_of_project and
| almost always land somewhere useful.
|
| This kills that. Some projects won't stay on Freenode and
| will move to Libera. Some projects won't stay on Freenode and
| will move to OFTC. Some projects will stay on Freenode.
|
| It fragments an ecosystem that was useful primarily because
| it was so universal, and the value of that universality is
| not conserved through fragmentation.
|
| I wish I understood the complaint better, so I could make a
| better argument for projects to move, and hopefully restore
| some of that universality elsewhere. But as it is, I simply
| can't make sense of the complaints without a lot of backstory
| I don't apparently have. For all the volunteers to walk out,
| there must be something there, I just don't grok it.
| milliams wrote:
| > "Let's [sic] take IRC further"
|
| Why the "sic"? Is there something wrong with contracting "Let us"
| in this way?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Nope. [sic] is definitely wrong there. Looks like it has been
| fixed though.
| mjthompson wrote:
| [sic] [sic] :)
| hesk wrote:
| I read that to mean that there is not "us" only "me".
| Sunspark wrote:
| Presenting an alternative user perspective here, I would go on
| freenode, but only for sports channels (really, and how that
| happened is because on reddit before they started promoting
| discord, there was a window where IRC was advertised for sports
| chat, usually during game nights).
|
| Freenode wasn't only for technology channels, though they were
| absolutely the majority.
|
| My experience with freenode has been a positive one, the sports
| channels had the same crowd of regulars and there were no real
| issues.
|
| Freenode was very nice, especially compared to the shower that
| EFNet was in the 90s and I am sorry to see that the freenode
| network is having troubles now.
|
| IRC is a great technology, it's too difficult for the average
| user to understand, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.
| javajosh wrote:
| Hi, I don't really use freenode, but even after your
| explaination, I don't understand what Andrew's big sin is - that
| he wants to keep IRC like it was when he loved it in his youth?
| Okay, but what specifically does that mean - what is the down-
| side? So far all I've read is that freenode is owned by someone,
| and now he's exerting control that others don't like, but no
| details of what that control is.
|
| BTW, "Let's..." is not misspelled. "Kerfluffle[sic]" is, but it's
| a misspelling I prefer, so good on ya!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| 'Kerfluffle' is a hilarious misspelling - sounds like a brand
| of marshmallow fluff.
| bargle0 wrote:
| Imagine an ad campaign where disagreements were solved by
| fluffer nutter sandwiches.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I've heard a _lot_ of people pronounce it that way. So much
| so that I figure it may actually be like 'irregardless' now.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| I get the sense that it's not a mispelling in the sense that
| Ariadne doesn't know how kerfuffle is spelled. Maybe I'm
| reading too much into this, but I also think that the
| comparison to Ariadne's bunny plushie - i.e. a fluffy thing -
| is related. Kerfluffle can be read as a portmanteau of
| kerfuffle and fluffy - a kerfuffle caused by Lee's need for a
| soft, fluffy thing to protect his ego. Dunno. Deep exegesis
| that could be entirely off base - maybe it's just a typo.
| senkora wrote:
| Kerfluffle is the way I say and spell the word. Wiktionary
| lists it as a variant:
|
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/kerfluffle
| shkkmo wrote:
| Kerfluffle is a misspelling that has yet to be
| "standardized", which is why you will only find that
| misspelling in crowd sourced dictonaries where people
| have added definitions to justify their misspelling.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Oh, cool. Kerfluffle is so much cuter.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| When you look at the etymology that's clearly a
| misspelling that has stuck somehow.
| gbear605 wrote:
| Lots of modern English words arose from misspellings (and
| mishearings) - if one becomes popular, it becomes an
| English word. That's how languages evolve, otherwise we'd
| still be speaking Proto-Indo-European.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Plenty of words are like that. "Apron" was originally
| "napron" but due to confusion from "a napron" sounding
| like "an apron" it changed that way.
|
| I personally have always said "kerfluffle", not
| kerfuffle.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I don 't understand what Andrew's big sin is_
|
| Lee founded Private Internet Access [1]. They had a history of
| being sketchy [2] and inexplicably hired Mark Karpeles.
|
| I don't have a connection to Freenode. But I can recognise a
| bad actor when I see one.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lee_(entrepreneur)
|
| [2] https://telegra.ph/Private-Internet-Access-VPN-acquired-
| by-m...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| He sold pia to an adware company and didn't bother to inform
| customers.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| >and now he's exerting control that others don't like, but no
| details of what that control is.
|
| From my understanding, that's the point. The volunteers who ran
| Freenode were told that Andrew would be completely unable to
| exert any control over the server - and now that has turned out
| to not be the case. The taking of control itself was a betrayal
| of a previous agreement, and produced a status quo that the
| freenode people weren't happy with.
|
| There's also allegations of forced advertising and "changes to
| network operations" on the Libera Chat website[0], which may
| have been significant to some of the volunteers.
|
| [0]: https://libera.chat/
| tootie wrote:
| They seem to be attributing a lot malice to his actions that
| isn't evident. This is the most low stakes power play I've seen
| play out. Just talk to the guy directly instead of stomping
| off.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Nothing about the reasons behind his actions are evident,
| despite repeated questioning. The answers he gives don't add
| up (a lot of vague mumbling about improving freenode by
| making it distributed, which seems completely counter to his
| actual actions).
| Karunamon wrote:
| _Making it distributed_? Isn 't that any IRC network with 2
| or more servers by definition?
| rcxdude wrote:
| Indeed, this is one of the ways in which what he says
| doesn't make much sense.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Why are you assuming no private communication happened? They
| aren't paid anything so setting up a new service with a
| domain not controlled by the disagreeable party seems to be
| the rational choice. What are they losing exactly?
| Macha wrote:
| Also, there has been plenty of private communication. We
| know because much of it has leaked.
| someguydave wrote:
| This whole affair makes the freenode "volunteer" staff sound
| like ungovernable children.
|
| (They are paid in status so they are not really volunteers)
| mlatu wrote:
| Oh ic... I saw an ad for a flat the other day, they were
| asking for status, I didn't get it then but now it makes
| sense.
| fullstop wrote:
| > (They are paid in status so they are not really volunteers)
|
| Citation Needed. Everything that I have read has stated that
| they are not paid, with the exception of a reimbursement for
| the cost of procuring a U2F key.
| g_sch wrote:
| Great point, I'll ask my landlord if I can pay my rent in
| status this month.
| andyana wrote:
| I know you're joking, but I'd like to see a video of you
| asking, and of your landlords reaction, for humor :).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think that's an interesting point (about status, at least),
| even if you're getting mocked for it. I can see the argument
| that the staff aren't purely charitable volunteers, they are
| getting a return on their effort. Or they wouldn't do it.
| someguydave wrote:
| I would certainly rather hang out in some rich guy's fief
| than a crazed "we r self-governing!!!" hippie commune. At
| least with the rich guy you know where you stand.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| You'd prefer a dictatorship to a democracy because self-
| government is too hard?
| kgwxd wrote:
| They're self-governing, and running a very useful service,
| and would like to stay that way.
|
| When someone walks in a room and declares they're now in
| control, without any right to do so, you don't just sit back
| and accept it, that's what children do.
| _jal wrote:
| An interesting point. A payment is something one entity makes
| to another.
|
| Who here is rendering the status "payments"? It certainly
| isn't Lee. It seems that status is coming from the community.
|
| Who the volunteers split off to serve, after Lee began making
| changes that don't.
|
| Hm. Seems like maybe the volunteer-status economy worked as
| it should.
| someguydave wrote:
| Obviously Lee took something of value from them, or they
| wouldn't be leaving.
| _jal wrote:
| Yes, that would be the governance model he broke, and the
| domain names, and so on.
|
| You appear to be looking at this as if Lee somehow
| acquired equity in the volunteers' goodwill and future
| labor, of which he is now being wrongfully deprived. How
| does that work, exactly?
| BEEdwards wrote:
| By that definition there is no such thing as a volunteer...
|
| "You didn't act selflessly, you only wanted to feel good
| about yourself."
| danaris wrote:
| ....Wow; that's quite a take on the definition of
| "volunteer."
| q3k wrote:
| The problem is that he wants to change freenode into something
| different [1] than it is, and he attempts to execute this on
| basis of 'I own freenode limited so you have to do as I say'
| [2]. Complete with supposed legal threats in case of non-
| compliance.
|
| This is something that works for companies with a clear
| ownership structure and typical employer/employee power
| dynamics, but not for volunteer-driven communities like
| freenode - in which people worked for free to build something
| that they believed in, and under the impression of the
| community being fully self-governed. What do you expect from
| these volunteers now, to just continue working for free on
| something that they now don't agree with, and with a person who
| obviously cares more about control than the service itself?
|
| This likely doesn't impact me or you directly. But indirectly,
| if I see _all_ staff flee from a project that I interacted
| with, I'm following them. After all, these are the people that
| made and maintained Freenode into what it is today, the name is
| just a technicality.
|
| [1] "On Decentralization", https://archive.is/NH1LN ;
| https://freenode.net/news/freenode-is-foss
|
| [2]
| https://gist.github.com/aaronmdjones/1a9a93ded5b7d162c3f58bd...
| zelon88 wrote:
| > This is something that works for companies with a clear
| ownership structure
|
| The ownership structure is clear, it is just unpopular within
| the community. There seems to be this sense of entitlement
| among Freenode developers and volunteers. You never had
| equity, but you thought you did. Whether or not that is the
| result of being misled is irrelevant. You have no stake.
| That's what "volunteers" are. Non stakeholding contributors.
| You contribute so long as the direction of the business is
| compatible with your morals. Nobody owes you a community.
|
| Why is anyone surprised that this napkin diplomacy failed?
| wearywanderer wrote:
| The owner has the 'clear right' to fire volunteers who were
| never paid and have already quit.
| pmlnr wrote:
| ^^^ this
|
| If there isn't a legal entity, the thing can't be
| protected. If there is a legal entity, and you're not
| officially part of it, then you're not part of it when it
| comes to scenarios like this.
|
| Yes, it sucks. Yes, the internet is different from 20 years
| ago. (Yet one still can't own a domain in the sense of
| owning a book, just rent a domain for some time, so certain
| things haven't changed, but this is offtopic.)
|
| I've been where the former freenode staff is now. I was
| part of a community site a long time ago, where the actual
| owners decided to close it down, and there was absolutely
| nothing I could do, despite being a contributer, an
| organiser, etc - in essence, a volunteer - for them,
| because I wasn't on any paper, anywhere.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I also want to point out that this is normal free-market
| stuff. The community is obviously strong enough to leave
| this company practically high-and-dry, and it is also
| obviously strong enough to maintain it's own fork if it
| chooses to do so. This is just iteration at work. If the
| new Freenode owners can't fix their mistakes; they will
| fail. So what. If the old Freenode developers are
| serious, they will succeed.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Counterpoint: Business equity does not confer ownership
| over labor. In this particular case, all you own from your
| equity is...
|
| - A handful of servers (which are cheap)
|
| - A name and a logo
|
| - Community goodwill, much of which has already been set
| aflame
|
| If the people running Freenode leave, and the people who
| used Freenode leave, then you don't really have anything
| left.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| FWIW I don't think you two are in disagreement. Even if
| the owner of the business owes the volunteers nothing
| (which imo is strictly true), the _value_ of the
| organization lies in the work and social connections of
| the volunteers. Them leaving is just part of business,
| and if the now evacuated Freenode eats crow for it,
| that's their problem given the volunteers did the work
| anyway.
| someguydave wrote:
| I am not surprised. I don't think any human on earth could
| give these "volunteer" "staffers" a command which they
| would obey.
| rcxdude wrote:
| The ownership structure was very much not clear to the
| volunteers. They had no contract with this company and as
| far as they knew the company (which freenode as a network
| predates) owned little to nothing of consequence. (and
| volunteers are very much stakeholders in any project, just
| usually not shareholders)
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| The behavior, as I understand it, is that Lee and company
| behaved mendaciously, taking what was a community/volunteer
| "staff" run enterprise and legalistically maneuvering to turn
| it into his own fiefdom without consent or even a modicum of
| transparency.
|
| Maybe this will have no operational effect, but it registers as
| terrifically unethical and destructive - he's predictably
| alienated and driven off most of the people running freenode.
| When people behave unethically and destructively in one
| scenario, it's easy to expect them to behave unethically and
| destructively in other scenarios. It's unacceptable from a
| governance perspective.
|
| Moving away from freenode is simple risk mitigation.
| feb wrote:
| Fiefdom is especially funny when you know Lee was crowned
| king of Korea a couple of years ago:
|
| * https://nextshark.com/korea-crown-prince-andrew-lee/ *
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lee_(entrepreneur)
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Fiefdom? What do you mean?
| newsclues wrote:
| It's when a manager or leader thinks they are the king or
| God of their little organization, and typically run it like
| a despotic ruler
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Yes, what the other commenters said. By exerting unilateral
| control, he's destroying the existing democratic governance
| mechanisms and making it a sort of rule by dictatorship. If
| you metaphorically treat freenode as territory, you can say
| that it's become Lee's fief, or fiefdom.
| silviot wrote:
| I'm no native speaker nor have I ever heard that word
| before. Looking online I found this definition:
|
| fiefdom /'fi:fd@m/
|
| a territory or sphere of operation controlled by a
| particular person or group.
|
| "a mafia boss who has turned the town into his private
| fiefdom"
| wott wrote:
| 'fiefdom' in English with the slightly redundant -dom
| suffix, simply 'fief' in French (a term commonly used),
| and closer to the root, 'feudo' in Italian and Spanish.
| jacobolus wrote:
| A fiefdom is the domain of a feudal lord. Like "kingdom"
| but where the lord could be a duke, earl, baron, ...
|
| Historically, lords had nearly absolute legal authority
| over the peasants living in their domain.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The term 'fief' comes from Medieval land tenure, where it's
| land granted to a lord in exchange for feudal service. Pop
| medievalism holds that feudal lords had pretty unlimited
| rights (the reality is that it's _far_ more complex), and
| so the term 'fiefdom' in modern contexts carries a
| connotation that the ruler of the fiefdom is ruling it
| tyrannically. Another element of the modern connotation is
| that a fiefdom is usually small, and the ruler is acting as
| if it's rather more important than it actually is.
|
| In short, it's a backhanded insult.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Another element of the modern connotation is that a
| fiefdom is usually small, and the ruler is acting as if
| it's rather more important than it actually is.
|
| > In short, it's a backhanded insult.
|
| [citation needed]
| allannienhuis wrote:
| Not sure where you could get citations for general
| cultural references like this. For what it's worth, his
| description of it being an insult is exactly how I
| understand it to be used too. Someone who thinks they are
| more powerful or important than they really are. Native
| English speaker here.
| [deleted]
| jpswade wrote:
| Do I miss IRC drama? No I don't think so.
| jefurii wrote:
| Seems like this may have been avoided if Freenode had just
| registered as an actual nonprofit that could have held/owned the
| domain and infrastructure.
| jlokier wrote:
| Ironically, that is in fact what happened. It's called Freenode
| Limited, and it's a registered nonprofit which holds the
| domain.
|
| The trouble is the people who have left are unhappy with how it
| was done.
| fouc wrote:
| > When freenode announced that it was joining with Private
| Internet Access in 2017, the domain name, as well as unspecified
| other "assets", were sold to one Andrew Lee via a holding
| company. Staff were uncertain but assured that PIA was to have no
| operational influence.
|
| > In early 2021, that changed. New advertising was pushed onto
| the freenode website without warning. The head of staff at the
| time ultimately resigned rather than explain. In the time since,
| there have been changes to network operations for which we have
| received no explanation.
|
| > Control of freenode infrastructure will soon be transferred to
| Freenode Limited and its agents.
|
| Seems like Andrew Lee is maneuvering to take control of the
| freenode irc network infrastructure. I would've assumed that the
| freenode irc network is comprised of volunteer servers.
| techrat wrote:
| > I would've assumed that the freenode irc network is comprised
| of volunteer servers.
|
| It is.
|
| That makes the whole situation that much more suspect, why
| someone like Lee should desire to take over a network not
| knowing that it consists of sponsor servers.
|
| Seeing what happened with Snoonet (a desolate wasteland), I
| fully expect to happen to Freenode as well.
|
| Shame. All for one man's ego.
| Operyl wrote:
| Snoonet was a desolate wasteland long before the PIA
| "merger." Since then, Discord has largely eaten up subreddits
| for communication platform of choice.
| sp332 wrote:
| It is, but the legal challenge would be expensive according to
| https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_461
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| This is like reading about the political intrigue of an ant
| colony. (jk ant colonies are fascinating)
| imode wrote:
| I've been on Freenode since 2006.
|
| I've been known as 'imode' for a couple of years now.
|
| I called out Lee, and he took my nickname away. There are already
| abuses of power going on, and he has no legal authority over any
| of the infrastructure.
|
| imode: Nick/channel is temporarily unavailable
| aliljet wrote:
| So, is this the first bifurcation? OFTC or Libera. Yesterday, I
| thought it was just Libera.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| OFTC has existed a long time, it's an option for projects that
| want to presumably just step out of this present drama
| entirely. Libera is the new Freenode, in terms of management
| staff and likely rules and policy.
| josteink wrote:
| Reposting my comment from a earlier thread.
|
| This story is just so unclear and leaves me full of questions.
| It's a complete mess, despite the numerous semi-official
| statements trying to clear things up.
|
| Things I'm wondering about:
|
| - why was freenode being sold in the first place?
|
| - for what was it sold? For money? And who was paid for the sale?
|
| - Did whatever freenode was sold for go back to support the IRC-
| network? Or did someone weasel it away for themselves?
|
| - why would anyone buy and IRC network? What did they expect to
| gain by owning the network?
|
| - Why was a volunteer-run IRC network even registered as a
| business which could be sold?
|
| Can anyone please help me understand?
| progval wrote:
| > - why was freenode being sold in the first place?
|
| > - for what was it sold? For money? And who was paid for the
| sale?
|
| > - Why was a volunteer-run IRC network even registered as a
| business which could be sold?
|
| It was to organize and sponsor a live conference ("Freenode
| #live").
|
| The contract is not public, and not even (now former) freenode
| staff knows the terms. See the first two paragraphs here:
| https://gist.github.com/edk0/478fb4351bc3ba458288d6878032669...
|
| > - Did whatever freenode was sold for go back to support the
| IRC-network? Or did someone weasel it away for themselves?
|
| It was mainly to support the conference, so this was a success.
| It's unknown if any other money was exchange.
|
| > - why would anyone buy and IRC network? What did they expect
| to gain by owning the network?
|
| There is a tentative explanation in the OP, but we may never
| know the actual reasons unless we are Andrew Lee himself.
| [deleted]
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