“Setting the record straight on Freenode” [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by tptacek » Sat, May 22, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #251

hannasanarion wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous holder of that job, Christel, had access to the DNS account, why couldn't Tom? Like, yeah, Tom was maneuovered into place to take control of the DNS account, because thats what a head of staff does. Do you think that each new US president shouldn't get the nuclear codes either?

He wasn't just asking for access to the DNS account - which it seems like, in fact, he already had and used to try and lock Andrew Lee and others involved in Freenode out - but for ownership of the domains to be transferred to him personally. Which would mean that in effect he would be the one who decided what Freenode was and who controlled it from then on, and if any other staff or users disagreed they could just p…

It looks like he asked about the domain transfer, and from the transcript Lee didn't say "no", and then later --- it looks like a month later, from the transcripts the other Freenode ops posted --- Lee asked for an employee of Freenode Ltd to be given access to Freenode's DNS and IRCop status.

Here's a log; search for "kevinp":

https://paste.sr.ht/blob/4f5c7a6b3f6adb4697572f8cd77582fa16a...

This is all super weird.

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

#262

Post by kodah » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #254

ex-fnstaffer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why the anonymous account?

That's his name on Freenode too. I don't think that's anonymous. He very clearly reads HN, as his "Freenode is FOSS" post links PGs fierce nerds post.

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

#263

Post by pmlnr » Sat, May 22, 2021, 7:47 AM UTC

The basis of the whole debacle is that Andrew believes someone can own freenode. Reality is that the domain can be on someone's name, but that doesn't make them the owner - communities have no owners.

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

#264

Post by Arathorn » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:19 AM UTC

ique wrote: post #107

tapoxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC stays IRC, but how else does a network like freenode survive a giant schism? They need to differentiate from libera chat. Matrix has problems, but as the ecosystem grows we'll start to see improvements.

I’ve been using Matrix with Riot, now Element, for 5 years and it’s only ever gotten worse. You really shouldn’t expect to see improvements.

fwiw Synapse has got progressively better, especially in the last 6 months. Element performance has certainly got worse over time though and we are working on that now.

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

#265

Post by Arathorn » Sat, May 22, 2021, 8:23 AM UTC

Macha wrote: post #100

hhvn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main points of matrix is that every server should be compatible and form a federation with others. What is the point of moving people onto a specific server? With IRC freenode has a control structure that can enforce their rules/guidelines, this breaks with matrix.

I think the big concerns with matrix.org centralisation are: * If matrix.org went away tomorrow, is there enough capacity in the rest of matrix for users to migrate to. * Federation only exists when a channel has users from multiple homeservers on it - how many small/medium channels only exist on matrix.org? * People's identities are tied to their home server. You would be userfoo:matrix.org - if matrix.org went away…

1. About 30% of the visible users on Matrix are on Matrix.org. So, yes.

2. Almost all public rooms seem to have users from other servers.

3. Account portability/multihoming is in the works at https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/2787

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

#266

Post by yannoninator » Sat, May 22, 2021, 10:58 AM UTC

a1369209993 wrote: post #244

yannoninator wrote: post #47

hmmm, the crown prince of korea owning freenode is just as believable as the queen of england contributing to the linux kernel.

No it isn't. It would be surprising if Elizabeth II bothered to personally write kernel code, but it's hardly unbelievable. Unless you're being absurdly pedantic about England-the-kingdom technically not existing because it's actually part of Great Britain/the UK now, but if so, you should probably say that.

oh my god, it's just a joke.

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

#267

Post by joepie91_ » Sat, May 22, 2021, 11:04 AM UTC

logical_person wrote: post #67

duckfang wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oof. Confidentiality, NDA's, and other business tools like it are at complete odds with open source, free software, transparency, and honesty. It's comments like this that cement the idea of getting off of Freenode to Libera.chat is the best thing we could do.

To say business tools and confidentiality are at odds with open source is comical at best. Some of us work on FOSS as a career. We still have to sign NDAs with customers, we still upstream patches to core components. Throwing your toys out of the ring because business is business is why open source has a funding problem.

I do commercial FOSS work without an NDA just fine. Seems it might just be a problem on your side...

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

#268

Post by joepie91_ » Sat, May 22, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #172

ryukafalz wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long story short, former staff were upset about a logo but the logos were there since the start. I wanted to share that. https://github.com/freenode/web-7.0/pull/489 "since the start."

That commit is replacing the logo and link of the previous sponsor Private Internet Access with one for Shells instead, and looking at the Wayback Machine that previous logo and link has been there since about April 2016[1] in the same location with the same level of prominence. (The one in the top-right corner underneath the Wayback Machine's toolbar, not the "Private Internet Access" entry in the footer which seems…

There were actually plenty of concerns about the PIA involvement and logo at the time, but they were largely dismissed by others with the usual "what are you complaining about, it's just business" rhetoric.

And that's how we ended up here.

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

#269

Post by joepie91_ » Sat, May 22, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #133

ryanmentor wrote: post #37

This just muddies the waters further. Let's get concrete: What assets does Freenode have, and who legally owns them?

As far as I can tell "freenode" is a fairly blurry mix of: The brand, including the DNS: that was passed on between people and then sold within the Freenode Limited company. If you have this you can point the blog and the network to whatever you want but you don't actually have an IRC network to point it to. The servers: these are donated by various organizations and thus owned by each one. They could join any other…

> But apparently the staff was indeed forced to hand the keys over on their way out and start from scratch instead of just standing up the same data on another DNS and doing a blockchain style split. Why this happened seems to be IRC drama.

Well, no, not really. More likely the reason for this is that taking the database with them would have given Lee a reason to continue legally harassing and essentially bankrupting them.

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

#270

Post by pedrocr » Sat, May 22, 2021, 2:21 PM UTC

joepie91_ wrote: post #269

pedrocr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell "freenode" is a fairly blurry mix of: The brand, including the DNS: that was passed on between people and then sold within the Freenode Limited company. If you have this you can point the blog and the network to whatever you want but you don't actually have an IRC network to point it to. The servers: these are donated by various organizations and thus owned by each one. They could join any other…

> But apparently the staff was indeed forced to hand the keys over on their way out and start from scratch instead of just standing up the same data on another DNS and doing a blockchain style split. Why this happened seems to be IRC drama. Well, no, not really. More likely the reason for this is that taking the database with them would have given Lee a reason to continue legally harassing and essentially bankrupting…

I was unclear, sorry. I meant the reason the whole thing as it happened was IRC drama, not the specific point about not using the data. I agree that specifically most likely happened because a group of volunteers don't want to expose themselves to a bunch of litigation from a hostile party.