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“Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

techrights.org

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Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#161

Post by ex-fnstaffer »

rasengan wrote: post #85
rcxdude wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think nearly the entire staff was against this? If it was a hostile takeover by a small 'non democratic' group, would you not expect that only that group would quit? Also, if you were the owner of freenode for so long, why does almost no-one in the chat logs which have been made public seem to be aware of you?

Did you read the PDF? It’s actually really clear there. Lots of defamatory and false comments were made by the former staff - which are proven to be false in the document. 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! [1] https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn

Do you plan to waive your attorney-client privilege for your lawyers' communications and release them to the community? This would be a really lovely piece of transparency by you.

If not, why?

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#162

Post by rasengan »

rcxdude wrote: post #149
rasengan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the donations Handshake made (136m) are being claimed as donations I made. The millions I have donated I did both personally and thru a wholly owned company. As I said before, attacking donations is sending a chilling effect in the FOSS community and to sponsors.

You mention you've donated millions. Presumably this is distributed across multiple projects. How much has freenode received from you?

Freenode > 1m

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#163

Post by wut42 »

rasengan wrote: post #150
wut42 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then explain your motives more clearly. Freenode used to be managed by a college of trusted people, and now? The issues with services I speak about wasn't related at all to mail either.

Freenode was staffed by volunteers but it was never managed by them. They were recruited by management. Let’s not rewrite history any further, please.

Really? Can you prove that? I've been on freenode since almost 18 years and there was no management, every head of staff after Lilo (so, Christel) was appointed by the staff, just like tomaw was.

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#164

Post by rasengan »

vore wrote: post #148
rasengan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the donations Handshake made (136m) are being claimed as donations I made. The millions I have donated I did both personally and thru a wholly owned company. As I said before, attacking donations is sending a chilling effect in the FOSS community and to sponsors.

I daresay your patronizing tone is hardly helping your case.

That’s a personal message to tptacek who has a history of replying to my comments.

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#165

Post by sillysaurusx »

ex-fnstaffer wrote: post #153
rasengan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably would not be wise to guess or speculate and instead go by what I have actually said. The issue with services was because the previous team pulled our mail server and all its contents. We had to abruptly get everything in place. As for the decentralizing - that’s what I’m into and the way to do it on irc is by ending reliance on a central domain name for the connection. It’s not decided yet but is something I…

As an ex-freenode staffer, this is simply untrue. You took over with zero transition plan, and no engagement with staff - none. You had had no involvement in the running of freenode until this week and had no relationship with any of the team. You marched in, announced that you were saving freenode from the "hostile takeover" of their own consensus-based, transparent, self-organisation, and SURPRISE they decided that…

Is it true that they pulled freenode’s mail server?

I see lots of emotion here, and emotion is fine. But yanking someone’s existing infrastructure isn’t very nice.

If that part isn’t true, though, then someone here is lying.

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#166

Post by ex-fnstaffer »

rasengan wrote: post #18
AlexandrB wrote: post #6

As an outsider who hasn't used IRC or Freenode in over a decade, this situation is impenetrable. Neither the posts by the Freenode volunteers nor this post by Andrew paint a coherent narrative I can follow (maybe I'm just old). 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?

Hi this is Andrew from the post and freenode. 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)…

Is it really a hostile takeover when it's supported by 100% of the staff who had been running freenode for decades, and the only person who didn't like it was you?

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#167

Post by hannasanarion »

fastball wrote: post #87
rcxdude wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think nearly the entire staff was against this? If it was a hostile takeover by a small 'non democratic' group, would you not expect that only that group would quit? Also, if you were the owner of freenode for so long, why does almost no-one in the chat logs which have been made public seem to be aware of you?

Maybe that's exactly the problem: Lee was being a custodian in the background. Tomaw or whomever decides they want control, so starts spreading falsehoods about interactions with Lee / Lee's intentions. Because Lee is so hands off, these falsehoods gain a lot of traction before Lee is aware of them / can do anything about them and now we're here. Not saying this is the reality, but it doesn't seem far-fetched given t…

> "Lee wants to takeover freenode" (the entity he already owned for years)

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.

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#168

Post by danieldle »

rasengan wrote: post #150
wut42 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then explain your motives more clearly. Freenode used to be managed by a college of trusted people, and now? The issues with services I speak about wasn't related at all to mail either.

Freenode was staffed by volunteers but it was never managed by them. They were recruited by management. Let’s not rewrite history any further, please.

Obviously bullshit, freenode is older than your company, and when it was founded you were not even known. The IRC network freenode was ran by, managed by, developed by and loved by volunteers. You came in like a wrecking ball and destroyed it.

Thank you, self-proclaimed saviour of IRC, for your continuing efforts in destroying it. Fortunately money doesn't buy you communities and doesn't buy you people, so compared to some proprietary solutions and companies, we can and will survive. Your freshly acquired toy, on the other hand, probably won't.

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#169

Post by wut42 »

rasengan wrote: post #162
rcxdude wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mention you've donated millions. Presumably this is distributed across multiple projects. How much has freenode received from you?

Freenode > 1m

On what ? Servers were given by third parties. Staffers were volunteers. Do you mean that you brought Freenode >1m to christel?

Re: “Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf]

#170

Post by apotheon »

ddtaylor wrote: post #116
rasengan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 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…

I'm also not great at following this whole thing. When did you acquire Freenode or how?

It seems to have been 2017 (hopefully I recall the year correctly), by transfer of legally owned/registered assets (all that comes to mind immediately that was under non-volunteer ownership is a couple of servers and a domain name or two, but maybe I'm mistaken about that). Of course, I'm not on any side of this, especially not the "inside" (wherever that may be), and I've just read some of the stuff being published by both sides.

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.

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