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Leaving Freenode for a new network

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Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#171

Post by psy-q »

mxuribe wrote: post #49
Thorentis wrote: post #16

Perhaps this could be the rise of Matrix many of us have been waiting for? I hope many freenode channel operators and admins encourage people in that direction, rather than trying to start alternative IRC networks that will die out.

I sure hope so! ...Not only because "yay, more people on the matrix network"...but because it would bring even more devs and designers (and content writers for documentation!), which would bring continued improvements to the ecosystem of servers and clients/apps as well as the matrix protocol itself! (Obviously, massive shout outs to all who do this tough work already, but more eyes/hands makes the bucket of bugs sha…

Running a Matrix homeserver is still quite a pain in the ass, especially because there is no real automatic way to purge old history. Join a busy room once and pay for it in megs or gigs of text stored in your DB forever.

Just using a matrix.org account instead is antisocial at this point because of the resources you're taking from the project, whereas paying for a hosted homeserver might not be something everyone can afford. IRC instead only requires a bouncer in the worst case, and even if you stay on channels for years you won't accrue as much history as a Matrix room can generate in a few days. I find that easier to maintain and store.

I do run my own Matrix homeserver and I intend to keep doing that and paying for it, but Matrix has more rough edges than IRC at the moment IMHO.

Edit: Ah, sorry, this was actually meant in reply to parent. But gonna leave it in.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#172

Post by weinzierl »

m-p-3 wrote: post #135
weinzierl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Matrix identity server system is entirely optional to use, I remember that I gave my email when I signed up for Matrix at element.io but haven't found a way how to find out if I'm using the identity server. If my email ended up there, how can I see if it is public? How do I actually query the identity system for information, especially which information it has about myself? I have tried to find this out, but it…

In your Settings > General you'll be able to see if you're using the Identity Server, and it let you disconnect your Matrix account from the Vector.IM Identity server if you wish https://i.imgur.com/N09ZPFp.png

Thanks, that made it pretty clear. I somehow expected the identity server to have its own UI but having this integrated in the Matrix client actually makes more sense.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#173

Post by varjag »

sdm55 wrote: post #161
yakubin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first IRC drama I'm hearing about. There is more drama in issue trackers of random GitHub projects that surface once a month on HN. I don't know where this perception of IRC comes from. Such a comment shows up under every link commenting on the matter. But it's still just one case.

This comment is September in a nutshell. IRC has fragmented itself into new networks because of olines bickering with each other since the early 1990s. Look into why EFnet, Undernet, and IRCnet (and sorta DALnet) came to pass. The history you’re confused about and that everyone else accepts as fact predates your birth, is the issue. All one has to do to see that it hasn’t changed is read these logs. Something about g…

Most IRC users today were kids during the fragmentation days. It's like still complaining about 1990s AI Winter.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#174

Post by necrotic_comp »

[deleted] wrote: post #166
xvilka wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Matrix there is also a lack of good lightweight clients and servers. The official client uses Electron. It will never be an alternative to the IRC with this attitude. There is a Weechat plugin but it's in Python...

[deleted]

I think it's the other way around - bridge your slack/discord/whatever into matrix, and then bridge the matrix results into IRC channels. That way everything stays put in your IRC client and you don't have to have a webpage open just to chat.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#176

Post by russss »

lutoma wrote: post #53
thinkingemote wrote: post #28

It seems inevitable that any Good company with great TOS with promises to never turn can be bought and changed towards evil. We've seen it time and time again. It's inevitable? How can we structure these organisations from creation so that this cannot happen? freenode believed the purchaser promises. What should they have done differently?

It seems to me like this is a shortcoming of the English (and American) legal system, where non-profit organizations and such can only be founded as "regular" companies and then tax-exempted. This means they are still subject to all the normal procedures surrounding companies like sales, and still tend to have one or a few owners who are solely in charge of everything. By comparison, many other European countries (Ge…

> It seems to me like this is a shortcoming of the English (and American) legal system, where non-profit organizations and such can only be founded as "regular" companies and then tax-exempted. This means they are still subject to all the normal procedures surrounding companies like sales, and still tend to have one or a few owners who are solely in charge of everything.

This isn't true in the UK. There's a structure called a Company Limited by Guarantee, which has no shareholders so it can't be sold. It's an association.

These are quite common, and in fact Freenode Limited is one. It was never "sold" in any conventional sense. There is no owner of Freenode Limited, but Andrew Lee is currently the only voting member so he has full control.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#177

Post by AshamedCaptain »

vlmutolo wrote: post #107
newvectorllc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? Matrix is no IRC. Fewer clients, way more complex protocol, the identity server is centralized, only one complete server implementation exists (and it seems like that's the only one that will ever exist, other attempts appear dead, despite the list on matrix.org) and worse than Freenode being owned by private capital, all of Matrix is controlled by New Vector LLC -- the protocol, the clients, and…

Even if you don't check, other people should know that this is extremely misleading. > Fewer clients, way more complex protocol This is actually a valid complaint, though it's partly due to Matrix being pretty young. The other part is that Matrix does a lot more for you than IRC (eg e2ee and federation) and those extra features require complexity. > The identity server is centralized This is a completely optional par…

> This one is way off. Synapse, the "one complete server" you must be referring to, is going to be deprecated. The Matrix Foundation team is working on Dendrite to replace it.

I hugely disagree.

I have tried to setup a "homeserver". Synapse is huge beast, complex, CPU and memory-hungry, hard to setup (no, a Docker or VM instance does not mean easy to setup). Dendrite is not ready and has been "not ready" for years, not to mention it is also huge and hard to setup, and from the same vendor, so it allays none of the fears. Construct is the _only_ one of all the 3rd party servers which I have found to be actually in a fully usable and federable state (the rest being all in different states of abandonment and uselessness), created by an author who is _openly_ critical of Matrix-the-company and their policy regarding 3rd party servers (incl. how most of the protocol is just defined by bug-by-bug Synapse compatibility and how the Matrix webpage to this day has no 3rd party servers list -- but happy to feature 3rd party paid-hosting list)

Compare this with Jabber. I install in seconds any of the _multiple_ servers that come with Debian stable. They are by now years old, but they still can connect with _everyone_ on the Jabber network. In Matrix, if I run a 2 year old Synapse, it will be like death-by-ostracization; same if I run today's Conduit.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#178

Post by chriswarbo »

fmajid wrote: post #121
bsedlm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they saying Andrew Lee got an NSL for freenode? no of course they are not saying that, they would be punished if they did (because it would be illegal). now, that such a thing exists in a "democracy"... is a topic on its own broader scope.

Apparently it’s in the UK, where judges are prompt to issue “superinjunctions” where even discussing the injunction is contempt of court and can incur a prison sentence. Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader.

> Whether a monarchy without a written constitution, or separation of Church and State can be considered a democracy is left as an exercise to the reader.

That's begging the question, since it assumes an objective answer. Rather, "it is up to the reader whether they consider a monarchy without a written consistution, or separation of Church and State, to be a democracy".

Even that is rather silly, since it's drawing arbitrary lines on a spectrum of more/less democratic. Some are pretty clean, e.g. direct democracy is more democratic than representative democracy; an elected head of a republic is more democratic than an inherited head of a monarchy. Others have more overlap, and hence aren't strictly ordered in the abstract, e.g. written versus unwritten constitutions, sortition versus election, etc.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#179

Post by hutrdvnj »

> You can connect to the new network at `irc.libera.chat`, ssl port 6697 (and the usual clearnet port).

You might want to consider to shutdown the clearnet port, since it sends user passwords and private chat messages in plaintext over the internet.

Re: Leaving Freenode for a new network

#180

Post by wut42 »

88 wrote: post #157
snthd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... Shows Mr Lee aquired >50% voting rights in 2017. (via https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... )

From what I understood of the previous (draft) resignation notes, there was a misunderstanding/disagreement over what (if any) Freenode assets actually belonged to that limited company.

Tomaw fought legally with Lee to get the sale contract from what I've read; and apparently it _does_ legitimately own the network.
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